Finite-Element Modelling of Needle-Tissue Interactions

Needle insertion into soft biological tissues has been of interest to researchers in the recent decade due to its minimal invasiveness in diagnostic and therapeutic medical procedures. This paper presents a review of the finite-element (FE) modelling of the interaction of needle/microneedles with soft biological tissues or tissue phantoms. The reviewed models laid a solid foundation for developing more efficient novel medical technologies. This paper encompasses FE models for both invasive and non-invasive needle-tissue interactions. The former focuses on tissue and needle deformation without employing any damage mechanism, whereas the latter incorporates algorithms that enable crack propagation with a damage mechanism. Invasive FE models are presented in five categories, namely nodal separation, element failure/deletion, cohesive zone (CZ), arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE), and coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian (CEL) methods. In each section, the most important aspects of modelling, challenges, and novel techniques are presented. Furthermore, the application of FE modelling in real-time haptic devices and a survey on some of the most important studies in this area are presented. At the end of the paper, the importance and strength of the reviewed studies are discussed and the remaining limitations for future studies are highlighted.