Measurement of the hyperelastic properties of 72 normal homogeneous and heterogeneous ex vivo breast tissue samples

Sergio C H Dempsey; Joseph J O'Hagan; Abbas Samani

doi:10.1016/j.jmbbm.2021.104794

Measurement of the hyperelastic properties of 72 normal homogeneous and heterogeneous ex vivo breast tissue samples

J Mech Behav Biomed Mater. 2021 Dec:124:104794. doi: 10.1016/j.jmbbm.2021.104794. Epub 2021 Aug 24.

Authors

Sergio C H Dempsey¹, Joseph J O'Hagan¹, Abbas Samani²

Affiliations

¹ School of Biomedical Engineering, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada.
² Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada; School of Biomedical Engineering, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada; Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada; Imaging Research Laboratories, Robarts Research Institute, London, Ontario, Canada. Electronic address: asamani@uwo.ca.

PMID: 34496308
DOI: 10.1016/j.jmbbm.2021.104794

Abstract

The mechanical properties of normal soft tissues, including breast tissue, have been of interest to the biomedical research community as there are many clinical and industrial applications that can benefit from quantitative information characterizing such properties. For instance, computer assisted surgery planning, elastography for breast cancer diagnosis, and bra design can all involve biomechanical modeling of the breast to predict its deformation or stress distribution. It is known that most biological soft tissues, including breast tissue, exhibit nonlinear mechanical response over large strains. As such, it is necessary to model such tissues as hyperelastic. In this work, we used indentation testing to estimate the hyperelastic parameters of 4 models (3rd order Ogden, 5-term polynomial, Veronda-Westman and Yeoh) estimated from 72 healthy ex vivo breast tissue samples covering adipose, fibroglandular, and mixed tissue. All estimated parameter sets were confirmed to represent stable material using Drucker's stability criterion. We observed that all three tissue types were statistically similar solidifying the use of homogenous breast modelling over large strain simulation.

Keywords: Adipose tissue; Breast tissue; Fibroglandular tissue; Hyperelastic parameters; Indentation technique; Measurement.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Algorithms
Biomechanical Phenomena
Breast*
Computer Simulation
Elasticity
Elasticity Imaging Techniques*
Finite Element Analysis
Humans
Models, Biological
Stress, Mechanical