Institute of Mechanical, Process and Energy Engineering, School of Engineering and Physical Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK.
Department of Pathology, Western General Hospital, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.
Int J Numer Method Biomed Eng. 2023 Nov;39(11):e3758. doi: 10.1002/cnm.3758. Epub 2023 Jul 21.
Human prostatic tissue exhibits complex mechanical behaviour due to its multiphasic, heterogeneous nature, with hierarchical microstructures involving epithelial compartments, acinar lumens and stromal tissue all interconnected in complex networks. This study aims to establish a computational homogenization framework for quantifying the mechanical behaviour of prostate tissue, considering its multiphasic heterogeneous microstructures and the mechanical characteristics of tissue constituents. Representative tissue microstructure models were reconstructed from high-resolution histology images. Parametric studies on the mechanical properties of the tissue constituents, particularly the fibre-reinforced hyper-elasticity of the stromal tissue, were carried out to investigate their effects on the apparent tissue properties. These were then benchmarked against the experimental data reported in literature. Results showed significant anisotropy, both structural and mechanical, and tension-compression asymmetry of the apparent behaviours of the prostatic tissue. Strong correlation with the key microstructural indices such as area fractions of tissue constituents and the tissue fabric tensor was also observed. The correlation between the stromal tissue orientation and the principal directions of the apparent properties suggested an essential role of stromal tissue in determining the directions of anisotropy and the compression-tension asymmetry characteristics in normal human prostatic tissue. This work presented a homogenization and histology-based computational approach to characterize the apparent mechanical behaviours of human prostatic or other similar glandular tissues, with the ultimate aim of assessing how pathological conditions (e.g., prostate cancer and benign prostatic hyperplasia) could affect the tissue mechanical properties in a future study.
由于其多相、非均相的性质，人类前列腺组织表现出复杂的力学行为，具有涉及上皮隔室、腺腔和基质组织的层次微观结构，这些结构都以复杂的网络相互连接。本研究旨在建立一个计算均匀化框架，以量化前列腺组织的力学行为，考虑到其多相非均匀的微观结构和组织成分的力学特性。从高分辨率组织学图像中重建了代表性的组织微观结构模型。对组织成分的力学性能，特别是基质组织的纤维增强超弹性进行了参数研究，以研究它们对组织表观性能的影响。然后将这些结果与文献中报道的实验数据进行了基准测试。结果表明，前列腺组织的表观行为具有显著的各向异性和力学各向异性，以及拉伸压缩不对称性。还观察到与关键微观结构指标（如组织成分的面积分数和组织织构张量）之间存在很强的相关性。基质组织取向与表观性能的主方向之间的相关性表明，在正常人类前列腺组织中，基质组织在确定各向异性方向和压缩拉伸不对称性特征方面起着重要作用。这项工作提出了一种基于均匀化和组织学的计算方法来描述人类前列腺或其他类似腺体组织的表观力学行为，其最终目的是评估在未来的研究中病理状态（如前列腺癌和良性前列腺增生）如何影响组织力学性能。
