Lagrangian Magnetic Particle Tracking Through Stenosed Artery Under Pulsatile Flow Condition

Drug delivery technologies are an important area within biomedicine. Targeted drug delivery aims to reduce the undesired side effects of drug usage by directing or capturing the active agents near a desired site within the body. This is particularly beneficial in, for instance, cancer chemotherapy, where the side effects of general (systemic) drug admin-istration can be severe. Herein, a numerical investigation of unsteady magnetic drug tar-geting (MDT) using functionalized magnetic microspheres in partly occluded blood vessels is presented considering the effects of particle-fluid coupling on the transport and capture of the magnetic particles. An Eulerian–Lagrangian technique is adopted to resolve the hemodynamic flow and the motion of the magnetic particles in the flow using ANSYS FLUENT. An implantable cylindrical permanent magnet insert is used to create the requisite magnetic field. Targeted transport of the magnetic particles in a partly occluded vessel differs distinctly from the same in a regular unblocked vessel. Parametric investi-gation is conducted and the influence of the flow Re, magnetic insert diameter, and its ra-dial and axial position on the “targeting efficiency ” is reported. Analysis shows that there exists an optimum regime of operating parameters for which deposition of the drug-carrying magnetic particles in a predesignated target zone on the partly occluded vessel wall can be maximized. The results provide useful design bases for in vitro set up for the investigation of MDT in stenosed blood vessels. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4026839