Simulation and study of the behaviour of the transversalis fascia in protecting against the genesis of inguinal hernias

Abstract 

Simulating the muscular system has many applications in biomechanics, biomedicine and the study of movement in general. We are interested in studying the genesis of a very common pathology: human inguinal hernia. We study the effects that some biomechanical parameters have on the dynamic simulation of the region, and their involvement in the genesis of inguinal hernias. We use the finite element method (FEM) and current models for the muscular contraction to determine the deformed fascia transversalis for the estimation of the maximum strain. We analysed the effect of muscular tissue density, Young's modulus, Poisson's coefficient and calcium concentration in the genesis of human inguinal hernia. The results are the estimated maximum strain in our simulations, has a close correlation with experimental data and the accepted commonly models by the medical community. Our model is the first study of the effect of various biological parameters with repercussions on the genesis of the inguinal hernias.

Keywords: Inguinal hernia, Shutter mechanism, Finite element method