Abstract
It is well known that the changes in tissue microstructure associated with certain pathophysiological conditions can influence its mechanical properties. Quantitatively relating the tissue microstructure to the macroscopic mechanical properties could lead to significant improvements in clinical diagnosis, especially when the mechanical properties of the tissue are used as diagnostic indices such as in digital rectal examination and elastography. In this study, a novel method of imposing periodic boundary conditions in non-periodic finite-element meshes is presented. This method is used to develop quantitative relationships between tissue microstructure and its apparent mechanical properties for benign and malignant tissue at various length scales. Finally, the inter-patient variation in the tissue properties is also investigated. Results show significant changes in the statistical distribution of the mechanical properties at different length scales. More importantly the loss of the normal differentiation of glandular structure of cancerous tissue has been demonstrated to lead to changes in mechanical properties and anisotropy. The proposed methodology is not limited to a particular tissue or material and the example used could help better understand how changes in the tissue microstructure caused by pathological conditions influence the mechanical properties, ultimately leading to more sensitive and accurate diagnostic technologies.
Highlights
Biological tissues are often heterogeneous and hierarchical materials with complex underlying microstructures, which determine the apparent mechanical behaviour at the macroscopic level [1,2]
Due to the complex geometries indicated by the histological images, a novel method that applies the periodicity across the region of interest (ROI) at the control points instead of FE nodes is proposed and later validated using a benchmark solution
It is shown that the cancerous prostatic tissue presents statistically a lower degree of anisotropy than non-cancerous tissue and less statistical variation in tissue properties, with significantly higher stiffness
Summary
Biological tissues are often heterogeneous and hierarchical materials with complex underlying microstructures, which determine the apparent mechanical behaviour at the macroscopic level [1,2]. Such tissue microstructures can develop under certain pathophysiological conditions which may manifest themselves at the macroscopic level in such forms as lumps, inflammation and surface roughness and can lead to changes in the mechanical properties. Multiple sclerosis and aging have been reported to influence the mechanical properties of brain tissue [7,8].
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