Macro and Micro Biomechanical Studies of Soft Tissue Remodeling under Tissue Expansion (II)

There has been a considerable progress in the soft tissue reconstruction operations. Among them, the technique of tissue expansion has received increasing attention in recent years due to its great success in clinical trials and operations for scar revision, wound closure, and tumor removal, etc. However, the clinical application of tissue expanding technique is far from perfect. Soft tissue is a viscoelastic material that exhibits complex mechanical properties, e.g. time-dependent mechanical properties. In this study, we propose to establish a database of these basic properties from animal (pigs) and human (local patients) soft tissue. In addition, we intend to study the effect of different shapes, sizes, surface textures and numbers of tissue expanders on the rate of tissue expansion and its histological and biomechanical changes. We will also study the effect of continuous and intermittent injections to achieve the maximization and optimization of tissue expansion. This is a consecutive study of one research grant (NSC 100-2221 -E-038 -005). The 2nd and 3rd parts of the whole study are highly correlated and necessary for completing this biomechanical investigation of tissue expansion.