• colonoscopy
• modular design
• molds' fabrication
• physical simulator

Over the past decade, a great interest has grown in the employment of simulators for the acquisition, maintenance, and assessment of skills in GI endoscopy. In particular, physical simulators are supposed to be used in the standard colonoscopy setup enabling a true interaction with the medical instrumentation, albeit they often lack visual realism and variability of configurations, besides their limited affordability.
The present Master Thesis focuses on investigating colon morphology and biomechanics to envisage an innovative modular silicone-made training platform offering a low-cost, versatile, and customizable alternative to commercial static simulators. Straight and curved molds realizing the different colonic units are designed in SolidWorks and afterward, 3D printed: the adopted modular approach enables the user to fabricate custom straight modules and curved connections by setting the number of colonic units and the angle of flexion, respectively.
FEM simulations are performed to address silicone selection and get insights into the insufflation behavior, with the aim of qualitatively mimicking colon biomechanics.
A complete colon simulator prototype is fabricated and equipped with assorted sizes and shapes of polyps: its performance is tested by means of cecal intubation and polypectomy within the Kyoto Kagaku phantom and within a custom-made abdominal simulator embedded with monoaxial strain gauge sensors.
This work shows promising results in view of improving the accessibility, versatility, and anatomical realism of current colonoscopy physical simulators.