Development of a realistic venepuncture phantom

Abstract

Venepuncture is one of the most common invasive procedures performed worldwide, however, complications still occur. Currently, commercial single layer silicone phantoms used for venepuncture training do not accurately imitate the geometry and mechanical properties seen in the various patient groups. This paper presents the development of a realistic artificial venepuncture phantom. Three multilayered tissue phantoms are developed simulating venepuncture sites of paediatric, adult and geriatric patients. Silicone materials of different stiffnesses were selected to imitate the epidermis, dermis, subcutaneous fat, muscle and superficial veins. Singleaxis indentation tests were carried out on silicone samples and the multi-layered phantom inserts to characterize the material properties. The measured Young's moduli for the artificial dermis, fat and muscle show sufficient agreement with corresponding literature values. However, characterization of the complete phantom inserts showed stiffnesses four times larger than prior in-vivo studies. Future studies will work on developing a more comparable in-vivo study.

Keywords

• venepuncture
• tissue phantom
• indentation testing
• silicone molding