Mathematical modelling of collagen fibres rearrangement during the tendon healing process

Abstract

Tendon injuries present a clinical challenge to modern medicine as they heal slowly and rarely is there full restoration to healthy tendon structure and mechanical strength. Moreover, the process of healing is not fully elucidated. To improve understanding of tendon function and the healing process, we propose a new model of collagen fibres rearrangement during tendon healing. The model consists of an integro-differential equation describing the dynamics of collagen fibres distribution. We further reduce the model in a suitable asym-ptotic regime leading to a nonlinear non-local Fokker-Planck type equation for the spatial and orientation distribution of collagen fibre bundles. Due to its simplicity, the reduced model allows for possible parameter estimation based on data. We showcase some of the qualitative properties of this model simulating its long time asymptotic behaviour and the total time for tendon fibres to align in terms of the model parameters. A possible biological interpretation of the numerical experiments performed leads us to the working hypothesis of the importance of tendon cell size in patient recovery.