Effect of Material and Population on the Delivery of Nanoparticles to an Atherosclerotic Plaque: A Patient-specific In Silico Study

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the prevalent reason of mortality all around the world. Targeting CAD, specifically atherosclerosis, with controlled delivery of micro and nanoparticles, as drug carriers, is a very proficient approach. In this work, a patient-specific and realistic model of an atherosclerotic plaque in the left anterior descending (LAD) artery was created by image-processing of CT-scan images and implementing a finite-element mesh. Next, a fluid–solid interaction simulation considering the physiological boundary conditions was conducted. By considering the simulated force fields and particle–particle interactions, the correlation between injected particles at each cardiac cycle and the surface density of adhered particles over the atherosclerotic plaque (SDP) were examined. For large particles (800 and 1000 nm) the amount of SDP on the plaque increased significantly when the number of the injected particles became higher. However, by increasing the number of the injected particles, for the larger particles (800 and 1000 nm) the increase in SDP was about 50% greater than that of the smaller ones (400 and 600 nm). Furthermore, for constant number of particles, depending on their size, different trends in SDP were observed. Subsequently, the distribution and adhesion of metal-based nanoparticles including SiO2, Fe3O4, NiO2, silver and gold with different properties were simulated. The injection of metal particles with medium density among the considered particles resulted in the highest SDP. Remarkably, the affinity, the geometrical features, and the biophysical factors involved in the adhesion outweighed the effect of difference in the density of particles on the SDP. Finally, the consideration of the lift force in the simulations significantly reduced the SDP and consistently decreased the particle residence time in the studied domain.