Abstract
Neutrophils can be retained in pulmonary capillaries causing higher concentration than in systemic circulation, and it is thought to be due to the cells' low deformability in passing through narrow capillaries. The authors numerically simulated flow of neutrophils through a simple capillary network model taking into consideration the cells deformability. However, in the simulation, the concentration ratio of the cells between those in the network and those injected into the network was less than a half of the experimentally obtained value. Other possible factors for the long retention time are friction or plasma leak between the cells and the endothelium of the capillaries. In this paper, these effects were simply modeled to introduce into the simulation and their contribution to the increase in the concentration was numerically investigated. Consequently, it was found that the concentration ratio has an upper limit, and it increases only in the case large amount of plasma leak.
