title: Artificial midline-fascia of the human abdominal wall for testing suture strength.
abstract: To reduce testing of human abdominal wall closure-modalities in test animals, a fibre reinforced rubber with identical mechanical properties compared to the human midline fascia (linea alba: LA) was developed. The microscopic structure of the human LA, stress-strain behaviour, maximum tensile force and macroscopic failure mechanism in tensile tests with human LA were defined as indicators for the required properties of the fibre reinforced rubber. A composite consisting of latex rubber and cotton fibres was developed that shows mechanical properties comparable to the human abdominal wall. The results of the tensile tests on sutured artificial LA were highly similar to those performed on sutured human LA. The material presented in this study is proposed as a substitute for human and animal tissues presently used to test suture techniques. A protocol for an approach to develop artificial fibrous soft tissue like fascie and tendon was drawn up.
authors.affiliation: Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Industrial Design, Landbergstraat 15, 2628 CE, Delft, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: van Os
authors.forename: J F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Lange
authors.forename: R H M
authors.initials: RH
authors.lastname: Goossens
authors.forename: R P
authors.initials: RP
authors.lastname: Koster
authors.forename: J W A
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Burger
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jeekel
authors.forename: G J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Kleinrensink
mesh_terms: D000009:Abdominal Muscles / Q000502:physiology* / Q000601:surgery*; D034861:Abdominal Wall; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D005205:Fascia / Q000737:chemistry / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D013529:Surgical Wound Dehiscence; D013536:Suture Techniques; D013537:Sutures; D013718:Tensile Strength