Development of Idealized Geometries that Mimic Upper Airway Deposition of Aerosols and Sprays

我们呼吸的空气中的颗粒物是有害健康影响的主要来源。另一方面，故意将空气中的颗粒输送到呼吸道是输送治疗药物的一种重要方法，用于治疗哮喘、流感和鼻炎等疾病。出于这些原因，了解和预测呼吸道中颗粒物的行为对于评估与环境气雾剂暴露相关的风险，以及改进依赖于呼吸道药物输送的治疗方法都是重要的。因为吸入的颗粒物必须通过鼻子或口腔(所谓的上呼吸道)进入呼吸道，所以要了解这些颗粒物的命运，首先要了解它们在上呼吸道的命运。在二十多年的时间里，艾伯塔省气溶胶研究实验室(ARLA)有条不紊地探索了上呼吸道中的颗粒行为，导致我们开发出了理想化的上呼吸道物理模型，现在许多学术研究人员和加拿大及世界各地的40多家公司都在使用该模型进行气溶胶暴露研究以及吸入器的开发和测试。

Particles in the air that we breathe are a major source of detrimental health effects. On the other hand, the intentional delivery of airborne particles to the respiratory tract is an important method of delivering therapeutic drugs for the treatment of diseases e.g. asthma, flu and rhinitis, among many others. For these reasons, understanding and predicting the behavior of particles in the respiratory tract is important both for assessing the risks associated with ambient aerosol exposure, but also for improving treatments that rely on drug delivery to the respiratory tract. Because inhaled particles must enter the respiratory tract through the nose or mouth (the so-called upper airways), understanding the fate of such particles begins with understanding their fate in the upper airways. Over the span of more than two decades, the Aerosol Research Laboratory of Alberta (ARLA) has methodically explored particle behavior in the upper airways, leading to our development of idealized upper airway physical models that are now used by many academic researchers and more than 40 companies in Canada and worldwide for research on aerosol exposure and in the development and testing of inhalers.