Towards the biomechanical modelling of the behaviour of ex-vivo porcine perineal tissues

Abstract

The perineum is a layered soft tissue structure with mechanical properties that maintain the integrity of the pelvic floor. During childbirth, the perineum undergoes significant deformation that often results in tears of various degrees of severity. To better understand the mechanisms underlying perineal tears, it is crucial to consider the mechanical properties of the different tissues that make up the perineum. Unfortunately, there is a lack of data on the mechanical properties of the perineum in the literature. The objective of this study is to partly fill these gaps. Hence sow perineums were dissected and the five perineal tissues involved in tears were characterized by uniaxial tension tests: Skin, Vagina, External Anal Sphincter, Internal Anal Sphincter and Anal Mucosa. From our knowledge, this study is the first to investigate all these tissues and to design a testing protocol to characterize their material properties. Six material models were used to fit the experimental data and the correlation between experimental and predicted data was evaluated for comparison. As a result, even if the tissues are of different nature, the best correlation was obtained with the Yeoh and Martins material models for all tissues. Moreover, these preliminary results show the difference in stiffness between the tissues which indicates that they might have different roles in the structure. These obtained results will serve as a basis to design an improved experimental protocol for a more robust structural model of the porcine perineum that can be used for the human perineum to predict perineal tears.