Freezing affects the mechanical properties of bovine liver - biomed 2009

The need to quantify the mechanical properties of human abdominal organs is becoming increasingly important in the automotive industry due to the large incidence of injuries to these organs as a result of motor vehicle crashes. The need to develop appropriate preservation and testing methodology is of particular importance because of how quickly abdominal organ tissues degrade after death. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of freezing on the mechanical properties of bovine liver parenchyma in uni-axial tension. In the current study, one fresh never frozen bovine liver was divided in half. One half was frozen and then thawed prior to preparation, and the other half tested immediately. Each half was sliced and stamped so that multiple parenchyma tension coupons were produced. A total of 16 failure tests were performed at an average strain rate of 0.07 s-1, 8 fresh and 8 previously frozen, using a custom uni-axial tension system. The results showed that there was no statistically significant difference (p=0.07) in the average failure stress between fresh and previously frozen tissue. However, the average failure strain of the previously frozen tissue was found to be significantly less (p>0.01) than the average failure strain of the fresh tissue. It was concluded from these data that in order to obtain accurate tensile mechanical properties of bovine liver parenchyma, the liver must not be frozen prior to testing.