IEEE Trans Nanobioscience. 2020 Apr;19(2):270-284. doi: 10.1109/TNB.2020.2968567. Epub 2020 Jan 22.
Targeted drug delivery (TDD) modality promises a smart localization of appropriate dose of therapeutic drugs to the targeted part of the body at reduced system toxicity. To achieve the desired goals of TDD, accurate analysis of the system is important. Recent advances in molecular communication (MC) present prospects to analyzing the TDD process using engineering concepts and tools. Specifically, the MC platform supports the abstraction of TDD process as a communication engineering problem in which the injection and transportation of drug particles in the human body and the delivery to a specific tissue or organ can be analyzed using communication engineering tools. In this paper we stand on the MC platform to present the information-theoretic model and analysis of the TDD systems. We present a modular structure of the TDD system and the probabilistic models of the MC-abstracted modules in an intuitive manner. Simulated results of information-theoretic measures such as the mutual information are employed to analyze the performance of the TDD system. Results indicate that uncertainties in drug injection/release systems, nanoparticles propagation channel and nanoreceiver systems influence the mutual information of the system, which is relative to the system's bioequivalence measure.
靶向药物输送（TDD）模式有望将适当剂量的治疗药物智能定位到身体的靶向部位，同时降低系统毒性。为了实现 TDD 的预期目标，对系统进行准确分析很重要。最近分子通信（MC）的进展为使用工程概念和工具分析 TDD 过程提供了前景。具体来说，MC 平台支持将 TDD 过程抽象为通信工程问题，其中可以使用通信工程工具分析药物颗粒在人体内的注入和运输以及递送到特定组织或器官的过程。在本文中，我们站在 MC 平台上提出了 TDD 系统的信息论模型和分析。我们以直观的方式呈现了 TDD 系统的模块化结构和 MC 抽象模块的概率模型。信息论度量（如互信息）的仿真结果用于分析 TDD 系统的性能。结果表明，药物注入/释放系统、纳米颗粒传播通道和纳米接收器系统中的不确定性会影响系统的互信息，这与系统的生物等效性度量有关。
