Sensing principle for real-time characterization of viscoelasticity in the beating myocardial tissue

This study was aimed to prove the conceptual basis of a new sensing principle, capable of characterizing the viscoelastic properties of beating myocardial tissue. In this regard, a sensing principle based on the spontaneous contact between the beating cardiac wall and a force-displacement sensor was proposed. A multi-parameter, mass-spring mechanical model of myocardial tissue was proposed. A series of experiments, resembling the sensor function and the cardiac wall motion was setup. The mechanical response of the model subjected to the boundary condition from the experiments was simulated. The results of the simulation were analyzed against variation in the model parameters and the cardiac wall velocity. The model with the best fitting parameters was then subjected to higher cardiac wall velocity to predict the contact force. The model could fit the experimental results with up to 97.9% resemblance and could predict the contact force for with up to 95.1% similarity. The significant similarity of the simulated results with the experiments could prove the consistency of the proposed mechanism. Moreover, the fast and repeatable computations for the sensing principle enables this method to be a good candidate for integration into the cardiac robotic surgeries.