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Tracheobronchial tumors, while uncommon, are often malignant in adults. Surgical removal is the primary therapy for non-metastatic lung malignancies, but it is only possible in a small percentage of non-small-cell lung cancer patients and is limited by the number and location of tumors, as well as the patient’s overall health. This study proposes an alternative treatment: administering aerosolized chemotherapeutic particles via the pulmonary route using endotracheal catheters to target lung tumors. To improve delivery efficiency to the lesion, it is essential to understand local drug deposition and particle transport dynamics. This study uses an experimentally validated computational fluid particle dynamics (CFPD) model to simulate the transport and deposition of inhaled chemotherapeutic particles in a 3-dimensional tracheobronchial tree with 10 generations (G). Based on the particle release maps, targeted drug delivery strategies are proposed to enhance particle deposition at two lung tumor sites in G10. Results indicate that controlled drug release can improve particle delivery efficiencies at both targeted regions. The use of endotracheal catheters significantly affects particle delivery efficiencies in targeted tumors. The parametric analysis shows that using smaller catheters can deliver more than 74% of particles to targeted tumor sites, depending on the location of the tumor and the catheter diameter used, compared to less than 1% using conventional particle administration methods. Furthermore, the results indicate that particle release time has a significant impact on particle deposition under the same inhalation profile. This study serves as a first step in understanding the impact of catheter diameter on localized endotracheal injection for targeting tumors in small lung airways.
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This content will become publicly available on December 1, 2025
Experimental full-volume airway approximation for assessing breath-dependent regional aerosol deposition
Modeling aerosol dynamics in the airways is challenging, and most modern personalized in vitro tools consider only a single inhalation maneuver through less than 10% of the total lung volume. Here, we present an in vitro modeling pipeline to produce a device that preserves patient-specific upper airways while approximating deeper airways, capable of achieving total lung volumes over 7 liters. The modular system, called TIDAL, includes tunable inhalation and exhalation breathing capabilities with resting flow rates up to 30 liters per minute. We show that the TIDAL system is easily coupled with industrially and clinically relevant devices for aerosol therapeutics. Using a vibrating mesh nebulizer, we report central-to-peripheral (C:P) aerosol deposition measurements aligned with both in vivo and in silico benchmarks. These findings underscore the effectiveness of the TIDAL model in predicting airway deposition dynamics for inhalable therapeutics.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2237430
- PAR ID:
- 10562710
- Publisher / Repository:
- Cell Press
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Device
- Volume:
- 2
- Issue:
- 12
- ISSN:
- 2666-9986
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 100514
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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