Supporting skill acquisition in cochlear implant surgery through virtual reality simulation.

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Supporting skill acquisition in cochlear implant surgery through virtual reality simulation.

Cochlear Implants Int. 2017 Mar;18(2):89-96

Authors: Copson B, Wijewickrema S, Zhou Y, Piromchai P, Briggs R, Bailey J, Kennedy G, O'Leary S

Abstract
OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the effectiveness of a virtual reality (VR) temporal bone simulator in training cochlear implant surgery.
METHODS: We compared the performance of 12 otolaryngology registrars conducting simulated cochlear implant surgery before (pre-test) and after (post-tests) receiving training on a VR temporal bone surgery simulator with automated performance feedback. The post-test tasks were two temporal bones, one that was a mirror image of the temporal bone used as a pre-test and the other, a novel temporal bone. Participant performances were assessed by an otologist with a validated cochlear implant competency assessment tool. Structural damage was derived from an automatically generated simulator metric and compared between time points.
RESULTS: Wilcoxon signed-rank test showed that there was a significant improvement with a large effect size in the total performance scores between the pre-test (PT) and both the first and second post-tests (PT1, PT2) (PT-PT1: P = 0.007, r = 0.78, PT-PT2: P = 0.005, r = 0.82).
CONCLUSION: The results of the study indicate that VR simulation with automated guidance can effectively be used to train surgeons in training complex temporal bone surgeries such as cochlear implantation.

PMID: 28238283 [PubMed - in process]

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