Mixture theory modeling for characterizing solute transport in breast tumor tissues

TL;DR

This study models solute transport in breast tumor tissues using mixture theory, revealing how vascular configurations and flow directions influence nanoparticle distribution and concentration peaks, with implications for therapy timing.

Contribution

It introduces a mixture theory-based model for solute transport in tumor tissues, analyzing effects of vascular arrangements and flow on nanoparticle distribution and identifying a universal concentration peak time.

Findings

Presence of additional vessels reduces extravascular concentration.

Flow direction affects nanoparticle distribution and trapping.

A universal non-dimensional time scale for peak concentration is identified.

Abstract

Solute transport is modeled using mixture theory, applied to the nanoparticle accumulation and concentration decay in the tissue space for different vascular configurations. A comparison of a single capillary configuration (SBC) with two parallel cylindrical blood vessels (2 BC) and a lymph vessel parallel to a blood vessel (BC_LC) embedded in the tissue cylinder is performed for five solute molecular weights between 0.1 kDa and 70 kDa. We found that the presence of a second capillary reduces the extravascular concentration compared to a single capillary and this reduction is enhanced by the presence of a lymph vessel. Co-current flow direction between two adjacent vessels led to nonhomogeneous nanoparticle distribution for larger particle sizes in the tissue space, while smaller particles (0.1 kDa and 3 kDa) showed the propensity to get trapped locally in the tissue during counter-current flow. Varying the intercapillary distance with respect to vessel diameter shows a deviation of 10-30 % concentration for 2 BC and 45-60% concentration for BC_LC configuration compared to the reference SBC configuration. Finally, we introduce a non-dimensional time scale that captures the concertation as a function of the transport and geometric parameters. We find that the peak solute concentration in the tissue space occurs at a non-dimensional time, T_peak^* = 0.027+/-0.018, irrespective of the solute size, tissue architecture, and microvessel flow direction. This suggests that if indeed such a universal time scale holds, the knowledge of this time would allow estimation of the time window at which solute concentration in tissue peaks. Hence this can aid in the design of future therapeutic efficacy studies as an example for triggering drug release or laser excitation in the case of photothermal therapies.