Simulation studies of a novel electromagnetic actuation scheme for focusing magnetic micro/nano-carriers into a deep target region

Abstract

The ability to focus spherical particles (SPPs) to a deep tumor region remains one of the major challenges in magnetic drug targeting (MDT). A number of studies have attempted to overcome this problem using fast magnetic pulses and ferromagnetic rods. However, focusing of the SPPs in the deep body organs remains unsolved using existing schemes. In this paper, we propose a novel electro-magnetic actuation scheme for pushing and focusing SPPs. The simulation results demonstrate that the newly proposed actuation scheme can focus SPPs to a target surface region, inside of a block filled with an environment that has the characteristics of blood. We then investigated the effects of the proposed focusing scheme in realistic blood vessels with a maximum length of about 10-12 cm. The results show that SPPs of 500 nm can be concentrated onto a target tumor region with up to 97.9% efficiency. The proposed electromagnetic actuation scheme can maximize the efficiency of MDT, while minimizing the side effects of drugs in other tissues. (C) 2017 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).