In silico prototype of a human lung with a single airway to predict particle deposition.

Background: Experimental analyses of the flow of drug particles inside the human lung usually require that the patient be exposed to radiation and also of expensive equipment that often lack of enough accuracy. Numerical calculations based on CFD (computational fluid dynamics) have been proven to be a valuable tool to analyze flows in diverse applications.

Methods: The complexity of the human lung disallows running calculations on complete lung models due to the large number of cells that would be required.