Brachytherapy is a common treatment in cervical, uterine and vaginal cancer management. The technique is characterised by rapid developments in the fields of medical imaging, dosimetry planning and personalised medical device design. To reduce unnecessary burden on patients, assessments and training of these technologies should preferable be done using high-fidelity physical phantoms. In this study, anthropomorphic deformable phantoms of the vaginal wall and cavity were developed for image-guided adaptive brachytherapy, in which vaginal wall biomechanics were mimicked. Phantoms were produced from both silicone and polyvinyl alcohol materials. Material characterisations were performed with uniaxial tensile tests, via which Young’s moduli and toughness were quantified. In addition, the contrast between adjacent phantom layers was quantified in magnetic resonance images. The results showed that stress-strain curves of the silicone phantoms were within the range of those found in healthy human vaginal wall tissues. Sample preconditioning had a large effect on Young’s moduli, which ranged between 2.13 and 6.94 MPa in silicone. Toughness was a more robust and accurate metric for biomechanical matching, and ranged between 0.23 and 0.28 10⁶ Jm⁻³ as a result of preconditioning. The polyvinyl alcohol phantoms were not stiff or tough enough, with a Young’s modulus of 0.16 MPa and toughness of 0.02 10⁶ Jm⁻³. All materials used could be clearly delineated in magnetic resonance images, although the MRI sequence did affect layer contrast. In conclusion, we developed anthropomorphic deformable phantoms that mimic vaginal wall tissue and are well visible in magnetic resonance images. These phantoms will be used to evaluate the properties and to optimise the development and use of personalised brachytherapy applicators.

近距离放射治疗是宫颈癌、子宫癌和阴道癌治疗的常见治疗方法。该技术的特点是在医学成像、剂量学规划和个性化医疗设备设计领域的快速发展。为了减少患者不必要的负担，最好使用高保真体模对这些技术进行评估和培训。在这项研究中，开发了拟人化的阴道壁和腔体可变形体模，用于图像引导的自适应近距离放射治疗，其中模拟了阴道壁的生物力学。幻影由硅树脂和聚乙烯醇材料制成。通过单轴拉伸试验进行材料表征，通过该试验量化杨氏模量和韧性。此外，在磁共振图像中量化了相邻模型层之间的对比度。结果表明，硅胶体模的应力-应变曲线在健康人阴道壁组织中发现的范围内。样品预处理对杨氏模量有很大影响，硅树脂的杨氏模量在 2.13 和 6.94 MPa 之间。韧性是生物力学匹配的更稳健和准确的指标，范围在 0.23 和 0.28 之间 10⁶ Jm ^-3作为预处理的结果。聚乙烯醇模型不够硬或不够坚韧，杨氏模量为0.16 MPa，韧性为0.02 10 ⁶ Jm ^-3。尽管 MRI 序列确实影响了层对比度，但所有使用的材料都可以在磁共振图像中清晰地描绘出来。总之，我们开发了拟人化的可变形体模，可模拟阴道壁组织并且在磁共振图像中清晰可见。这些模型将用于评估特性并优化个性化近距离放射治疗应用器的开发和使用。