A microchannel flow model for soft tissue elasticity.

A number of advances, including imaging of tissue displacements, have increased our ability to make measurements of tissue elastic properties of animal and human tissues. Accordingly, the question is increasingly asked, 'should our data be fit to a viscoelastic model, and if so which one?' In this paper we focus solely on soft tissues in a functional (non-pathological) state, and develop a model of elastic behavior that is based on the flow of viscous fluids through the extensive network of tissue microchannels in response to applied stress. This behavior can be captured in a 2-parameter model, and the model appears to predict the stress-relaxation behavior and the dispersive shear wave behavior of bovine liver specimens and other soft tissues and phantoms. The relationship of the microchannel flow model to more traditional models is also examined.