The heterogeneous multiscale method to study particle size and partitioning effects in drug delivery

Abstract

Abstract This study aims to develop a multiscale method that will help improve drug delivery systems. A finite volume heterogeneous multiscale method (FV-HMM) is propounded to model mass transport by considering cell scale heterogeneity in the biological tissues. The partition phenomenon is included in the mass transport model. A new upscaling technique has been devised to evaluate the effective mass transport at the macro level. An interface method based on alternating direction implicit scheme is used to solve the microscale models. FV-HMM is used to study the tissue penetration efficacy of drug nanoparticles. Numerical experiments are performed with different parameters, and it is concluded that partition phenomenon and particle size are the important factors on tissue penetration efficacy of nanoparticles in drug delivery. Also, FV-HMM is used to determine the biological cell geometry impact on drug penetration at the tissue scale.