Computational modeling of intraperitoneal drug delivery for the treatment of peritoneal carcinomatosis

Intraperitoneal (IP) injection of chemotherapy has been proposed as a promising method for the treatment of peritoneal dissemination due to ovarian or colorectal cancer, and its use in conjunction with cytoreductive surgery has shown interesting results in the treatment of certain cases of patients. However, drug penetration into the tumor is very limited in this method, and a better understanding of the factors influencing this low penetration depth is necessary. For this purpose, in the present study, a numerical model has been developed to investigate drug transport during IP chemotherapy. Using this model, first, the spatio-temporal distribution of free, bound and internalized drug concentrations into cancer cells is calculated. Then, by calculating the penetration depth of the drug (W_(1⁄2)%) and the fraction of killed cells (FK), the effectiveness of the treatment was evaluated. Simulation results for a tumor with a diameter of 10 mm after 60 minutes of treatment showed that the drug is available only in a limited area of the outer border of the tumor. The values of FK and W_(1⁄2)% after 60 minutes of treatment were 1.2% and 11.4%, respectively, which indicates a poor treatment efficiency. The findings of this paper can be used in future numerical and experimental studies to gain a deeper insight into the mechanisms of drug delivery to the tumor by intraperitoneal injection.