Characteristic Waveforms for Testing of Medical Aerosol Inhalers

Respiratory diseases are characterised by high prevalence among the European population. Medical aerosol inhalers are the most commonly used means of drug delivery into the human respiratory system. This paper focuses on characteristic waveforms that can be utilised during aerosol deposition studies to simulate conditions of rapid human inhalation. Additionally, an inhalatory waveform based on clinically recorded spirometry data is introduced. Experimental measurements are performed and simulation results mutually compared using the electro-mechanical lung simulator xPULM\(^{\text {TM}}\). The inhalatory waveforms are repeatably simulated with high fidelity in regards to the waveform shape with the lowest value of the Goodness of fit 0.89. Additionally, the measured values for all characteristic inhalatory parameters are simulated with low standard deviation \(\sigma \) < 1. The differences between the required and measured waveform shapes are small, \(\varDelta PIF\) < 3 L/min and do not influence the overall inhalatory volume. This opens a possibility of utilising the xPULM for medical aerosol inhalers testing.