Targeted Drug Delivery of Magnetic Nano-Particle in the Specific Lung Region

• Main Authors: Anusmriti Ghosh, Mohammad S. Islam, Suvash C. Saha
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-02-01
• Series: Computation
• Subjects: pharmaceutical aerosol; magnetic field; magnetic number; targeted drug delivery; magneto hydrodynamics
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-3197/8/1/10

Aerosolized drug inhalation plays an important role in the treatment of respiratory diseases. All of the published in silico, in vivo, and in vitro studies have improved the knowledge of aerosol delivery in the human respiratory system. However, aerosolized magnetic nano-particle (MNP) transport and deposition (TD) for the specific position of the human lung are still unavailable in the literature. Therefore, this study is aimed to provide an understanding of the magnetic nano-particle TD in the targeted region by imposing an external magnetic field for the development of future therapeutics. Uniform aerosolized nano-particle TD in the specific position of the lung airways will be modelled by adopting turbulence <i>k</i>&#8722;&#969; low Reynolds number simulation. The Euler&#8722;Lagrange (E&#8722;L) approach and the magneto hydrodynamics (MHD) model are incorporated in the ANSYS fluent (18.0) solver to investigate the targeted nano-particle TD. The human physical activity conditions of sleeping, resting, light activity and fast breathing are considered in this study. The aerosolized drug particles are navigated to the targeted position under the influence of external magnetic force (EMF), which is applied in two different positions of the two-generation lung airways. A numerical particle tracing model is also developed to predict the magnetic drug targeting behavior in the lung. The numerical results reveal that nano-particle deposition efficiency (DE) in two different magnetic field position is different for various physical activities, which could be helpful for targeted drug delivery to a specific region of the lung after extensive clinical trials. This process will also be cost-effective and will minimize unwanted side effects due to systemic drug distribution in the lung.