Abstract
The number of corneal surgeries steadily grew in recent years and boosted the development of corneal biomechanical models. These models can contribute to simulating surgery by reducing associated risks and the need for secondary interventions due to ectasias or other problems related to correcting other diseases. Biomechanical models are based on the geometry obtained with corneal topography, which is affected by intraocular pressure and material properties. Knowledge of stress distribution in the measurement phase is a key factor for improving the accuracy of in silico mechanical models. In this work, the results obtained by two different methods: prestress method and displacements method were compared to evaluate the stress and strain distribution in a general geometric model based on the Navarro eye geometry and two real corneal geometries. The results show that both methods are equivalent for the achievement of the stress distribution in the measurement phase. Stress distribution over the corneal geometry in the measurement phase is a key factor for accurate biomechanical simulations, and these simulations could help to develop patient-specific models and reduce the number of secondary interventions in clinical practice.
Highlights
In recent years, several efforts were made to study new mechanical models to analyze biological soft tissues [1]
The calculated stress distribution in the measurement phase is in equilibrium with the intraocular pressure, and the maximum displacement obtained, when both are applied over the cornea model, is lower than a tolerance previously defined
To obtain the free stress geometry, a direct inverse calculation can be applied to the finite element model based on the corneal topography by considering only the stress distribution in the measurement phase without intraocular pressure (IOP)
Summary
Several efforts were made to study new mechanical models to analyze biological soft tissues [1]. The calculation of stress distribution in the measurement phase is a key factor for improving the accuracy of mechanical corneal models. The calculated stress distribution in the measurement phase is in equilibrium with the intraocular pressure, and the maximum displacement obtained, when both are applied over the cornea model, is lower than a tolerance previously defined. Knowledge of the stress distribution in the measurement phase must be correctly evaluated to better assess the stress distribution over the cornea because the development of accurate patient mechanical models can contribute to improving the accuracy of the corneal refractive surgery procedures. A comparison of the results obtained by the two main methods presented for the preliminary stress calculation was made on a theoretical geometry and on two real corneal geometries with different degrees of disease severity
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