Characterizing the elastic properties of the biological soft tissues in the context of Computer Assisted Surgery and Planning
Résumé
Recently, arguing that most of the human body is made of soft tissues that can move as well as deform during surgical gestures, biomechanicians have worked even more closely with the Computer Assisted Surgery community. Indeed, sophisticated biomechanical models had to be developed to try to predict the way soft tissues are supposed to deform during surgery. By sophisticated models, we mean models that permit in most cases to take into account the geometrical (large deformation hypotheses) and/or the mechanical non linearities (with a non-linear constitutive behaviour of the tissues). From an experimental point of view, characterizing the elastic properties of the human soft tissues appears to be very difficult and highly dependent on the experimental process that is used (in vitro versus in vivo). During this talk, we will try to illustrate these difficulties with our experiences in the context of glossectomy, orbital and maxillofacial Computer Assisted Planning.