Peng Qiyu, Omata Sadao, Peehl Donna M, Constantinou Chris E
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2011;2011:8515-8. doi: 10.1109/IEMBS.2011.6092101.
Previous studies have demonstrated that the stiffness of cancerous cells reflects their pathological stage and progression rates, with increased cancerous cell stiffness associated with increased aggressiveness. Therefore, the elasticity of the cancerous cells has the potential to be used as an indicator of the cancer's aggressiveness. However, the sensitivity and resolution of current palpation and imaging techniques are not sufficient to detect small cancerous tissues. In previous studies, we developed a tactile-based device to map with high resolution the stiffness of a tissue section. The purpose of this study is to evaluate this device using different tissues (BPH, Cancer and PZ) collected from human prostates. The preliminary results show that the tactile device is sensitive enough to tell the differences of the stiffness of different tissues. The results also disclosed the factors (humidity, temperature and tissue degradation) which could dramatically affect the results of stiffness mapping. The tactile technology described in this paper has the potential to help disclose the underlying mechanical mechanisms that lead to increased stiffness in prostate tumors.
先前的研究表明，癌细胞的硬度反映了它们的病理阶段和进展速度，癌细胞硬度增加与侵袭性增强相关。因此，癌细胞的弹性有潜力被用作癌症侵袭性的指标。然而，当前触诊和成像技术的灵敏度和分辨率不足以检测到小的癌组织。在先前的研究中，我们开发了一种基于触觉的设备，以高分辨率绘制组织切片的硬度图。本研究的目的是使用从人类前列腺收集的不同组织（良性前列腺增生、癌症和前列腺移行带）评估该设备。初步结果表明，该触觉设备足够灵敏，能够区分不同组织的硬度差异。结果还揭示了可能显著影响硬度映射结果的因素（湿度、温度和组织降解）。本文所述的触觉技术有潜力帮助揭示导致前列腺肿瘤硬度增加的潜在力学机制。
