Addressing Challenges of Volume Controlled Cavity Expansion (VCCE) for In-Vivo Tissue Testing

Abstract

The prevalence of Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI’s) is a serious health concern to U.S. Military Members. Mild TBI’s, some of which have been shown to result from prolonged exposure to repeated artillery blasts, are particularly challenging to identify with existing diagnostic imaging technology. In general, as with other soft-tissued organs, there exists a gap in understanding of how biological tissues deform under extreme loading conditions. Understanding these mechanics has applications beyond diagnosing physical bodily injuries as diseased tissues have also been shown to demonstrate differing mechanical p roperties. Volume Controlled Cavity Expansion (VCCE) is a novel, needle-based probing methodology developed to capture rate dependent ex-vivo and in-vivo tissue material properties. In this thesis, the VCCE methodology was performed on numerous animal tissues as well as extracted human thyroids to study some of the challenges related to the translation of the VCCE lab technique into a medical diagnostics tool. To ensure a successful VCCE test, it was shown that choice of needle and the insertion protocol must be altered depending on the type of biological tissue being tested. Additionally, in a clinic setting, VCCE was demonstrated as a successful methodology in differentiating between a diseased and healthy tissue. Using the mechanics-informed in-vivo tissue probing method, VCCE has applications for improved assessment and diagnostic tools for injured and/or diseased tissues, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), and casualty transport safety guidelines.