[Low cost simulator for acquiring basic laparoscopic skills]
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Antonio Morandeira Rivas1, Arancha Cabrera Vilanova, Fátima Sabench Pereferrer
1Unidad de Cirugía, Facultad de Medicina y Ciencias de la Salud, Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Pere Virgili IISPV, Hospital Universitario de Sant Joan, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Reus, Tarragona, España.
Introduction:
Laparoscopic surgery requires a different set of skills than conventional surgery. The aim of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of a low-cost simulator and camera for the acquisition of basic laparoscopic skills.
Material And Methods:
This randomised trial involved 48 subjects (32 students and 16 surgeons). Two exercises were used, object transfer and cutting. Students were divided into two groups (n=8). One group performed the exercises in the operating theatre with the conventional laparoscopic camera. The second group performed the exercises in a classroom with a low cost micro-camera. Both groups were evaluated before and after five training sessions. Two groups of students were used as controls (n=8), and were evaluated two times without training. The surgeons were divided in two groups (n=8), one was evaluated in the theatre and the other one in the classroom.
Results:
The trained groups showed significant improvements in the first exercise (P <0.001) compared with non-trained groups. There were no differences in scores between the groups with different cameras. The surgeons had better scores than students (P <0.001).
Conclusions:
The improvements in laparoscopic skills on this simulator with a low-cost camera were not significantly different from those gained using the simulator with the conventional laparoscopic camera. This simulator was able to differentiate between experienced and inexperienced subjects.
