Informatics in Medicine Unlocked (Jan 2021)
Magnetic drug delivery effects on tumor growth
Abstract
Background and objectives: In the magnetic drug targeting (MDT) method, the medication is bonded to magnetic nanoparticles and is directed to the target site applying a magnetic field. This study aimed to provide a mathematical model for exploring the effects of magnetic drug delivery operating parameters on the therapy success of a glioblastoma tumor. Methods: For this purpose, tumor growth is modeled by partial derivative equations, and the drug motion equation is coupled with tumor growth and magnetism equations. An oscillatory magnetic field is used in the drug targeting scenarios. Here, a parameter study is conducted, and the effectiveness of therapy is evaluated by considering Tumor Volume Index (TVI) as the ratio of tumor volume in magnetic drug delivery to that in conventional chemotherapy. Results: The results show that the efficacy of this therapy is highly dependent on the distribution of the medication in the adjacent tumor tissue. By increasing the frequency of oscillations relative to the initial state, which is considered to be just a period during treatment, TVI reduced to 0.95 followed by the inversion of the process at a certain value. The examination showed that at an optimum particle size that depends on tissue pore size, the TVI reduces to 0.94. Moreover, it was observed that the higher number of treatment cycles diminished TVI to 0.87. Conclusions: This mathematical model evaluates the efficacy of MDT and enables us to improve and optimize MDT techniques in curing brain tumors.
