Coupled biomechanical response of the cornea assessed by non-contact tonometry. A simulation study
Fecha
2015Autor
Versión
Acceso abierto / Sarbide irekia
Tipo
Artículo / Artikulua
Versión
Versión publicada / Argitaratu den bertsioa
Impacto
|
10.1371/journal.pone.0121486
Resumen
The mechanical response of the cornea subjected to a non-contact air-jet tonometry diagnostic
test represents an interplay between its geometry, the corneal material behavior and
the loading. The objective is to study this interplay to better understand and interpret the results
obtained with a non-contact tonometry test. A patient-specific finite element model of a
healthy eye, accounting fo ...
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The mechanical response of the cornea subjected to a non-contact air-jet tonometry diagnostic
test represents an interplay between its geometry, the corneal material behavior and
the loading. The objective is to study this interplay to better understand and interpret the results
obtained with a non-contact tonometry test. A patient-specific finite element model of a
healthy eye, accounting for the load free configuration, was used. The corneal tissue was
modeled as an anisotropic hyperelastic material with two preferential directions. Three different
sets of parameters within the human experimental range obtained from inflation tests
were considered. The influence of the IOP was studied by considering four pressure levels
(10–28 mmHg) whereas the influence of corneal thickness was studied by inducing a uniform
variation (300–600 microns). A Computer Fluid Dynamics (CFD) air-jet simulation determined
pressure loading exerted on the anterior corneal surface. The maximum apex
displacement showed a linear variation with IOP for all materials examined. On the contrary,
the maximum apex displacement followed a cubic relation with corneal thickness. In addition,
a significant sensitivity of the apical displacement to the corneal stiffness was also obtained.
Explanation to this behavior was found in the fact that the cornea experiences
bending when subjected to an air-puff loading, causing the anterior surface to work in compression
whereas the posterior surface works in tension. Hence, collagen fibers located at
the anterior surface do not contribute to load bearing. Non-contact tonometry devices give
useful information that could be misleading since the corneal deformation is the result of the
interaction between the mechanical properties, IOP, and geometry. Therefore, a noncontact
tonometry test is not sufficient to evaluate their individual contribution and a complete
in-vivo characterization would require more than one test to independently determine
the membrane and bending corneal behavior. [--]
Materias
Cornea,
Non-contact tonometry
Editor
Public Library of Science
Publicado en
Plos One, 10(3): e0121486
Departamento
Universidad Pública de Navarra. Departamento de Ingeniería Mecánica, Energética y de Materiales /
Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa. Mekanika, Energetika eta Materialen Ingeniaritza Saila
Versión del editor
Entidades Financiadoras
The research leading these results has received funding from the European Union’s Seven Framework Program managed by REA Research Executive agency under Grant Agreement n° FP7-SME-2013 606634 and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (DPI2011-27939-C02-01).
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La licencia del ítem se describe como © 2015 Ariza-Gracia et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.