Abstract
Anatomically realistic organ replicas or phantoms allow for accurate studies and reproducible research. To recreate a human kidney, mimicry of the elastic properties of the human kidney is crucial. However, none of the related work addressed the design and development of a kidney phantom using only silicone as material. In contrast to paraffin and hydrogel, silicone is an ideal variant for its extended shelf life, soft-tissue-like feeling, and viscoelastic modularity. To this end, we conducted Uniaxial Compression testing and Cauchy stress modeling. Results indicate that none of the available manufacturer silicone brands are suitable for the task of creating a realistic kidney phantom. Indeed, the tested silicone mixtures in low and high strain fall outside the required approximate target compressive moduli of 20 kPa and 500 kPa, respectively. This work provides a frame of reference for future work by avoiding the pitfalls of the selected ready-made silicones and reusing the reported theoretical and experimental setup to design a realistic replica of the kidney organ.
Highlights
Realistic organ replicas or phantoms allow for accurate studies and reproducible research
After performing Uniaxial Compression (UC) testing, the silicones advertised as corresponding to the target ranges of elastic properties of a human kidney do not fall within the required target compression m oduli[10]
We provide the means for reproducibility using openly available data, Cauchy stress modeling and technical validation scripts, but we provide the community with material parameters to characterize the tested silicone mixtures
Summary
Realistic organ replicas or phantoms allow for accurate studies and reproducible research. In contrast to paraffin and hydrogel, silicone is an ideal variant for its extended shelf life, soft-tissue-like feeling, and viscoelastic modularity To this end, we conducted Uniaxial Compression testing and Cauchy stress modeling. In the example of soft tissue deformation, a realistic phantom allows a reasonable evaluation of the software solution before proceeding to clinical trials Motivated by these aspects, this manuscript investigates the material testing and modeling phases before designing a silicone based kidney phantom. Kidneys are involved in up to 20% of severe abdominal trauma cases and up to 14% of chronic kidney disease[6,7,8] This motivates ways to acquire accurate data pertaining to its mechanical properties to help identify mechanisms of injury and/or validate computer vision based s ystems[9] for assisted or guided surgery.
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