Cutting characteristics of porcine tenderloin tissue along tangential direction of surface.

In some special surgeries, e.g., burnt necrotic tissue removing process and skin grafting process, the cutting edge of scalpel moves along the tangential direction of tissue surface to achieve the cutting of biological tissue. This cutting pattern, which is similar with the turning process of metal material, is essential different from the vertical cutting presented in literatures. As a first endeavor, the cutting characteristics along tangential direction of porcine tenderloin surface are investigated experimentally, where the bottom surface of tissue is fixed and the top surface is free. A set of advanced devices especially for ex vivo porcine tenderloin cutting, which can easily adjust the variable under different operating conditions, are designed and manufactured. The real-time device records quantitatively the cutting forces and tissue deformations, which is for evaluating the cutting energies and the fracture toughness, and analyzing the whole cutting process in detail. Additionally, a compression test device is designed for performing a standard component compression experiment, which is used to evaluate the tensile yield stress and the pain degree. A novel quantitative metric is proposed for predicting the pain degree (PDI) with a typical compression test. The relationship between the stress and the pain feeling is presented by the compression test of the particular sample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]