Experimental Investigation of Urethral Tissues and Structures Biomechanics

Urinary dysfunction can lead to incontinence, with relevant impact on the quality of life. This severe dysfunction can be surgically overcome by using an artificial urinary sphincter. However, several complications may result from an inappropriate prosthesis functionality, in many cases due to an unsuitable mechanical action of the device on urethral tissues. Computational models allow the investigation of mechanical interaction between biological tissues and biomedical devices, representing a potential support for surgical practice and prosthesis design. The development of such computational tools requires experimental data on biological tissues and structures mechanics, which are rarely reported in the literature. The present activities aim at providing a procedure for the mechanical characterization of urethral tissues and structures. The experimental protocol includes the morphometric and histologic analysis of urethral tissues, the mechanical characterization of tissues response by tensile and stress relaxation tests and the evaluation of urethral structural behavior by inflation tests. Results from preliminary experimental activities are processed adopting specific model formulations, also providing the definition of parameters that identify elastic and viscous tissues behavior. Different experimental protocols, leading to a comprehensive set of experimental data, allow for a reciprocal assessment of reliability of the investigation approach.

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