Sana Hosseini - Translational Engineering Approaches for Pulmonary Health Sciences: VCU 3MT Competition

The distribution of intranasal corticosteroids in pediatrics’ nasal cavity is expected to be different from adults. Despite the obvious differences in airway anatomy and breathing patterns of pediatric cohorts compared to adults, the majority of the intranasal delivery devices have been designed for adults. Therefore, there is a compelling need to evaluate functionality of commercially available devices for the pediatric population. To determine and compare patient and age relevant settings of these delivery devices, anatomically-correct pediatric and adult nasal replicas are required to evaluate intranasal delivery techniques and improve their efficiencies.

In vitro testing of aerosol delivery with anatomically correct replicas has been found to be effective in predicting behavior of particles in an in vivo setting, making it possible to evaluate and quantify characteristics of certain drug delivery methods without the uncertainty of in vivo testing. The benefits of realistic in vitro testing allow direct comparison and quantification of factors that ultimately define how aerosol will be deposited in specific regions of the airways.

To sum up, our goal herein is 1) development of in vivo-in vitro correlations to predict aerosol drug deposition under various methods of pulmonary drug delivery, 2) optimization of current techniques to improve the efficiency of targeted, noninvasive drug delivery, and 3) quantification and sensitivity analysis of the factors affecting respiratory deposition.