[Computer stimulation of endoscopic resection of the prostate]

The number of urologists in need of training is increasing whereas the number of resections of the prostate is falling. Patients are less and less willing to have their procedure serve for young residents to learn the technique of endoscopic resection of the prostate. Despite teachings and videoendoscopy, this procedure remains difficult to learn. We decided to develop a simulator for endoscopic resection after having seen the remarkable model of endoscopic simulation developed by French gastroenterologists and presented at the computer science workshop of the AFU symposium. The hypercard program, the laservision disk, and the CD ROM project were elected as a good introduction to this challenging although not unsurmountable problem. We had to adequate our goals to the resources of French urologists: the Macintosh II is the most sophisticated affordable computer. Computerization of the televised images of the endoscopic procedure and formalization of the gestures of the operator are required. Conventional image synthesis programs for use with the Mac II are either very slow or very limited. Conventional simulation programs are highly mathematical. Computerized images take up considerable memory space and large capacity disks or optical disks are required. The urologic laservision to which we contributed in 1986 contains few endoscopic images of the prostate but served as a basis for devising a methodology. Object programming with hypercard and animated image programs for Macintosh computers will be the starting points for our project that will benefit from the significant advances announced by Apple concerning color image file maintenance.