Maintaining Effective Microsurgery Training with Reduced Utilisation of Live Rats

Area of Science:

• Surgical Education
• Microsurgery
• Animal Models in Research

Background:

• Microsurgery is crucial in many surgical fields, demanding high surgeon proficiency.
• Live rat models offer high fidelity for microsurgical training but raise ethical concerns.
• Developing effective training methods with reduced animal use is essential.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate if microsurgical skills can be effectively acquired by reducing the number of live rats used in training.
• To compare skill acquisition and outcomes between different training course structures with varying animal usage.
• To assess the feasibility of optimizing surgical training models for ethical and practical considerations.

Main Methods:

• Two distinct training course structures were implemented, maintaining total training hours.
• Participants were divided into groups using fewer live rats (four or three per participant) compared to conventional methods.
• Training time on synthetic and ex-vivo models was increased to compensate for reduced live animal use.
• Effectiveness was measured by comparing anastomosis patency rates, time per anastomosis, and rat utilization efficiency.

Main Results:

• Group B, utilizing three rats per participant, achieved significantly faster anastomosis times compared to Group A (four rats).
• Anastomosis patency rates were comparable between groups despite the reduced number of live rats.
• Training efficiency, indicated by rat utilization, improved with fewer animals per participant.

Conclusions:

• Live rat usage in microsurgical training can be significantly reduced.
• Reduced animal use does not compromise the quality of surgical skill acquisition or procedural outcomes.
• This study demonstrates a viable approach to ethical and effective microsurgical education.