Study of tumor blood perfusion and its variation due to vascular normalization by anti-angiogenic therapy based on 3D angiogenic microvasculature

The coupling of intravascular and interstitial flow is a distinct feature of tumor microcirculation, due to high vessel permeability, low osmotic pressure gradient and absence of functional lymphatic system inside tumors. We have previously studied the tumor microcirculation by using a 2D coupled model. In this paper, we extend it to a 3D case with some new considerations, to investigate tumor blood perfusion on a more realist microvasculature, and the effects of vascular normalization by anti-angiogenic therapy on tumor microenvironment. The model predict the abnormal tumor microcirculation and the resultant hostile microenvironment: (1) in the intra-tumoral vessels, blood flows slowly with almost constant pressure values, haematocrit is much lower which contributes to hypoxia and necrosis formation of the tumor centre; (2) the total transvascular flux is at the same order of magnitude as intravascular flux, the intravasation appears inside of the tumor, the ratio of the total amount of intravasation flux to extravasation flux is about 16% for the present model: (3) the interstitial pressure is uniformly high throughout the tumor and drops precipitously at the periphery, which leads to an extremely slow interstitial flow inside the tumor, and a rapidly rising convective flow oozing out from the tumor margin into the surrounding normal tissue. The investigation of the sensitivity of flows to changes in transport properties of vessels and interstitium as well as the vascular density of the vasculature, gains an insight into how normalization of tumor microenvironment by anti-angiogenic therapies influences the blood perfusion. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.