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Simbios Talk by Joshua Smith, University of Virginia, Jan 11, 2006

Title: Modeling of Convection-Enhanced Delivery in Brain with Tumor

Abstract:
The ability to model perfusion in central nervous system (CNS) tissue is crucial to the design of clinical devices and operation protocols for the treatment of many diseases and disorders of the CNS. Previous mathematical models of drug administration to the brain via convection-enhanced delivery have either solved the convective-diffusive transport equation while ignoring any deformation of brain tissue during infusion, or have solved equations governing the deformation of the tissue while inferring results for the transport of the infusate without actually solving the convective-diffusive transport equation.

I will present the first physical-mathematical model in which the convective-diffusive transport of the infusate is solved for simultaneously with the deformation of the tissue.  The model includes both interstitial fluid transport and transvascular fluid exchange.  Among other findings, our results suggest that high transvascular fluid exchange in both normal and tumor tissue is a significant impediment to the uniform delivery of therapeutic agents to the tumor.