Influence of clamping parameters on the trauma of rabbit small intestine tissue

During clamping operation for minimally invasive intestinal surgery, patients often suffer from small intestine trauma. This phenomenon will lead to various complications, increase recovery time and cause pain for patients. In this paper, preliminary simulations of small intestine clamping operations in the minimally invasive surgery were made by conducting compression tests under different clamping stresses, durations and loading rates. A pathological grading system was designed after microscope observation to quantitatively evaluate the trauma of small intestine tissue. Results showed that different traumas: inflammatory cell infiltration, hyperemia, hemorrhage and rupture between serosa and muscularis, as well as villi destruction could be observed on the clamping sites of the small intestine tissue. When the clamping parameters (clamping stress, duration and loading rate) increased, the degree of the tissue trauma increased. There existed safe thresholds for clamping operations, at which severe trauma of small intestine tissues could be avoided in the clamping process. As the clamping parameters increased, the strain, that is the deformation of the small intestine tissue increased. The increase in the deformation would induce the aggravation of trauma degree. •Small intestine traumas under different clamping parameters were studied.•Pathological grading system was designed to quantitatively assess tissue damage.•Trauma degree was increasingly serious with the increasing clamping parameters.•Traumas were related to the variation of mechanical properties of soft tissue.•Safe thresholds were determined for prevention of severe trauma.