In Silico Investigation of Electrically Guided Drug Transport Toward Morphology-Specific Brain Tumor Treatment

Background/Objectives: Iontophoresis employs an applied electric field to induce electromigration, enabling the active and directional transport of drug molecules. This study presents the first computational investigation of iontophoretic drug delivery targeting human brain tumors. The objective was to evaluate the feasibility of this approach and to determine how electrode configurations influence drug transport across different tumor morphologies.

Methods

A realistic finite element head model was constructed from T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging data. Two representative glioblastoma morphologies were considered: a spherical tumor in the left hemisphere and a butterfly-shaped tumor extending across the corpus callosum. Six electrode configurations spanning three categories (scalp electrodes, combined catheter and scalp electrodes, and catheter electrodes) were systematically evaluated. The electric field distribution was computed by solving the quasi-static Laplace equation, and the spatiotemporal distribution of gadobutrol was obtained using the Nernst-Planck equation. Drug delivery performance was quantified in terms of tumor coverage and targeting efficiency.