Anna Pandolfi's KTH Solid seminar “Computational Continuum and Micromechanical Models for the Human Cornea"

Anna_Pandolfi_May_25_2023.pdf (pdf 262 kB)

Abstract. The eye is a multi-component biological system, where mechanics, optics, transport phenomena and chemistry are strictly interlaced. The eye’s response to external action is patient-specific and it can be predicted only by a customized approach, that accounts for the multiple physics and for the intrinsic microstructure of the tissues, developed with the aid of computational biomechanics. Our activity in the last years has been devoted to the development of a comprehensive patient-specific model of the cornea, able to simulate refractive intervention such as LASIK and SMILE. While the geometrical aspects are fully under control, the major difficulties are related to the characterization of the tissues, which require the definition of clinical in-vivo tests to complement known results of multiple ex-vivo tests. The interpretation of in-vivo tests is very complex, since the entire structure of the eye is involved and the characterization of the single tissue is not trivial, therefore the availability of micromechanical models constructed from the information given by diagnostic images of the eye represents a fundamental support for the characterization of the corneal tissues, especially in the case of pathologic conditions.