Numerical simulation of behavior of red blood cells and cancer cells in complex geometrical domains

Abstract

Investigation of the motion of deformable particles immersed in fluid is clinically very relevant because it can help to improve treatment planning, diagnostics of disease, design of efficient terapeutical procedures, analysis of drug transport, etc. Experimental investigation of these phenomena is difficult and expensive and, therefore, numerical simulations can contribute to the acquisition of a lot of new and useful information. In this paper, a numerical model that simulates solid-fluid interaction is presented and used to simulate the motion of red blood cells and spherical particles through a fluid domain. A comparison with experimental results and other results presented in literature is performed. The good accuracy of the model demonstrates that this method has a great potential for simulating phenomena happening within complex geometric domains, such as microfluidic chips for cancer cell separation.