One (sub-)acinus for all: Fate of inhaled aerosols in heterogeneous pulmonary acinar structures.

ABSTRACT: Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) have offered an attractive gateway to investigate in silico respiratory flows and aerosol transport in the depths of the lungs. Yet, not only do existing models lack sufficient anatomical realism in capturing the heterogeneity and morphometry of the acinar environment, numerical simulations have been widely restricted to domains capturing a mere few percent of a single acinus. Here, we present to the best of our knowledge the most detailed and comprehensive in silico simulations to date on the fate of aerosols in the acinar depths. Our heterogeneous acinar domains represent complete sub-acinar models (i.e. 1/8th of a full acinus) based on the recent algorithm of Koshiyama & Wada (2015), capturing statistics of human acinar morphometry (Ochs et al. 2004).

SUBMITTER: Hofemeier P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5810902 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature