4 Conclusions
The main purpose of the present study was to test the reliability and sensitivity of mechanical data obtained from human cervices with respect to a possible clinical application for diagnostic purposes. Future studies will be performed with the goal of using the proposed method for the detection of early cervical changes associated with pathologic conditions.
The investigation of the mechanical behavior of the human uterine cervices was based on the use of an aspiration device. Intra-operative in vivo measurements were performed on eight organs without delaying the surgical procedure. The quality of the in vivo data is comparable with that obtained ex vivo, and with the experience of previous ex vivo bench top applications of the aspiration device.
A comparison of measurements of the same organ in vivo and ex vivo has shown that: (i) the ex vivo mechanical response of the uterine cervix tissue, measured approximately 1.5 hours after extraction, did not differ considerably from that observed in vivo; (ii) a stronger history dependence in tissue pre-conditioning was identified in the ex vivo situation when compared with in vivo; (iii) the differences in the time dependence of the mechanical response (parameters δ and τ) were not significant and might be masked by the variability of the measured data.
Our preliminary data indicate that the proposed stiffness parameter η can be used for the characterization of human uterine cervices since the experimental procedure enables detection of changes of 30% with respect to a reference stiffness value.
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Mazza, E., Nava, A., Bauer, M., Winter, R., Bajka, M., Holzapfel, G.A. (2006). In Vivo Experiments to Characterize the Mechanical Behavior of the Human Uterine Cervix. In: Holzapfel, G.A., Ogden, R.W. (eds) Mechanics of Biological Tissue. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-31184-X_31
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