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Pubovisceralis Muscle Fiber Architecture Determination: Comparison Between Biomechanical Modeling and Diffusion Tensor Imaging

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Abstract

Biomechanical analysis of pelvic floor dysfunction requires knowledge of certain biomechanical parameters, such as muscle fiber direction, in order to adequately model function. Magnetic resonance (MR) diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) provides an estimate of overall muscle fiber directionality based on the mathematical description of water diffusivity. This work aimed at evaluating the concurrence between pubovisceralis muscle fiber representations obtained from DTI, and the maximum principal stress lines obtained through the finite element method. Seven datasets from axial T2-weighted images were used to build numerical models, and muscle fiber orientation estimated from the DT images. The in-plane projections of the first eigenvector of both vector fields describing muscle fiber orientation were extracted and compared. The directional consistency was evaluated by calculating the angle between the normalized vectors for the entire muscle and also for the right and left insertions, middle portions, and anorectal area. The values varied between 28° ± 6 (right middle portion) and 34° ± 9 (anorectal area), and were higher than the angular precision of the DT estimates, evaluated using wild bootstrapping analysis. Angular dispersion ranged from 17° ± 4 (left middle portion) to 23° ± 5 (anorectal area). Further studies are needed to examine acceptability of these differences when integrating the vectors estimated from DTI in the numerical analysis.

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Abbreviations

BMI:

Body mass index

DTI:

Diffusion tensor imaging

FEM:

Finite element method

FSE:

Fast spin-echo

ICIQ-SF:

International Consultation of Incontinence Questionnaire-Short Form

LA:

Levator ani

LMMSE:

Linear minimum mean square error

MPSL:

Maximum principal stress lines

MRI:

Magnetic resonance imaging

NSA:

Number of signals averaged

PFM:

Pelvic floor muscles

PVM:

Pubovisceralis muscle

SENSE:

Sensitivity encoding

SNR:

Signal-to-noise ratio

SPAIR:

SPectral Attenuated Inversion Recovery

SS-SE-EPI:

Single-shot spin-echo echo planar imaging

TE:

Echo time

TR:

Repetition time

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Acknowledgement

TR acknowledges the funding by CNPq (Grant No. 314649/2014-0) from Brazil government. The authors also acknowledge the funding of the Research Project UID/EMS/50022/2013, from Fundação da Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), Portugal, and Project NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000022-SciTech-Science and Technology for Competitive and Sustainable Industries, co-financed by Programa Operacional Regional do Norte (NORTE2020), through Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional (FEDER). RGN acknowledges funding by the FCT Investigator Program (IF/00364/2013).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiology, Centro Hospitalar de São João - EPE, Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, Alameda Prof. Hernâni Monteiro, 4200-319, Porto, Portugal

    Sofia Brandão

  2. Associated Laboratory for Energy, Transports and Aeronautics (LAETA), Institute of Science and Innovation in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering (INEGI), Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Rua Dr Roberto Frias, 400, 4200-465, Porto, Portugal

    Sofia Brandão, Marco Parente, Elisabete Silva, Thuane Da Roza & Renato Natal Jorge

  3. Biomechanics Laboratory, Center of Health and Sport Sciences, University of the State of Santa Catarina (CEFID/UDESC), Rua Pascoal Simone, 358, 88080-350, Florianópolis, Brazil

    Thuane Da Roza

  4. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Centro Hospitalar de São João - EPE, Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, Alameda Prof. Hernâni Monteiro, 4200-319, Porto, Portugal

    Teresa Mascarenhas

  5. Department of Radiology, Centro Hospitalar de Lisboa Norte-EPE - Hospital de Sta Maria, Faculty of Medicine, University of Lisbon, Avenida Prof. Egas Moniz, 1649-035, Lisbon, Portugal

    João Leitão & João Cunha

  6. Instituto de Biofísica e Engenharia Biomédica (IBEB), Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Campo Grande, 1749-016, Lisbon, Portugal

    Rita Gouveia Nunes

  7. Department of Bioengineering and Institute for Systems and Robotics (ISR/IST), LARSyS, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Rovisco Pais 1, 1049-001, Lisbon, Portugal

    Rita Gouveia Nunes

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  1. Sofia Brandão
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  2. Marco Parente
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  3. Elisabete Silva
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Correspondence to Sofia Brandão.

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Associate Editor Estefania Pena oversaw the review of this article.

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Brandão, S., Parente, M., Silva, E. et al. Pubovisceralis Muscle Fiber Architecture Determination: Comparison Between Biomechanical Modeling and Diffusion Tensor Imaging. Ann Biomed Eng 45, 1255–1265 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10439-016-1788-y

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