Modelling the dynamics of tuberculosis lesions in a virtual lung: Role of the bronchial tree in endogenous reinfection.

ABSTRACT: Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease that still causes more than 1.5 million deaths annually. The World Health Organization estimates that around 30% of the world's population is latently infected. However, the mechanisms responsible for 10% of this reserve (i.e., of the latently infected population) developing an active disease are not fully understood, yet. The dynamic hypothesis suggests that endogenous reinfection has an important role in maintaining latent infection. In order to examine this hypothesis for falsifiability, an agent-based model of growth, merging, and proliferation of TB lesions was implemented in a computational bronchial tree, built with an iterative algorithm for the generation of bronchial bifurcations and tubes applied inside a virtual 3D pulmonary surface. T

SUBMITTER: Catala M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7239440 | biostudies-literature | 2020 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature