Structure and Mechanical Properties of Soft Tissues during Selected Pathological Processes

Abstract

Pathological process often modifies the structure of the soft tissue and can lead changes of mechanical properties. The regularity of this relationship has already been used in the elastography and currently it is applied in medical diagnostic. Tissue stiffness can be identified by a quick measurement but more accurate details can be obtained only by biopsy. Studies, presented in a scientific literature, focus only on pathological stiffness or consider only changes in biochemical structure. These researches revealed two very important components of those modifications -elastin and collagen. Soft tissues are multicomponent, inhomogeneous and anisotropic structures. Their functionality depends on complicated processes on molecular level. Probably the individual components of the tissue can effect on each other. They may promote creation of processes, which can participate in modifications of elasticity. For this reason, it is very important to relate changes on the structural level with mechanical properties. This information can be very helpful in diagnosis and treatment of soft tissue disease.

Resonance frequency measurement to identify stiffness variations based on photoacoustic imaging

“…Identification of soft tissue properties is one of the biological markers of a disease, besides using blood and urine media [ 1 ]. Changes in the mechanical properties of soft tissues are important parameters that are widely studied because pathological processes often change the structure of soft tissues and can result in mechanical properties changes [ 2 ]. Evaluation of soft tissue mechanical properties is relatively more complicated and challenging because their characteristics are often highly nonlinear and anisotropic.…”

“…Identification of soft tissue properties is one of the biological markers of a disease, besides using blood and urine media [1]. Changes in the mechanical properties of soft tissues are important parameters that are widely studied because pathological processes often change the structure of soft tissues and can result in mechanical properties changes [2].…”