Topographical elasticity mapping combined with histology for the study of tissue mechanics of a rat liver cirrhosis

摘要

In regenerative therapy, it is of paramount importance to diagnose functional potentiality of mechanical permanence before transfer to a patient, however, there has not been developed any devices available for such diagnosis. On the other hand, we recently developed a Tactile Mapping System (TMS) that topographically measures elastic modulus of tissues and has been widely used to study the relationship between stiffness of organs and their histological structure. In this report, distribution of elastic modulus over a submerged fresh slice of rat liver cirrhosis was measured, and the tissue components and structure were immunohistochemically identified. As a result, there was clear relationship between the stiffness and the collagen concentration in hepatic lobule and interlobular connective tissues.