Can anisotropy enhance the spatial uniformity of drug distribution in biological tissue? 

Local drug delivery to biological tissue is now common in clinical practice. In recent years, mathematical and computational modelling has been increasingly employed to aid in the understanding of drug delivery kinetics and drug distribution in tissue. Models typically assume isotropic properties within the tissue, which is often far from reality, and since spatially uniform drug distributions are often desired, it is often not clear what effect the anisotropy has on drug distribution. In this paper we consider drug transport in tissue which possesses anisotropic diffusion properties. We demonstrate, by considering the example of a drug-eluting stent, that the anisotropy can enhance the uniformity of drug distribution in the tissue. This may have implications on the complexity of model required.