Preliminary Study of Eye-Tracking During the Coil Insertion Task in a Silastic Model of Intracranial Aneurysms

Surgical skills are generally acquired by watching the "hand movements" of experts. "Eye movements" are now attracting attention in skill-learning fields. Eye-tracking technology was introduced preliminarily to develop a better skill-learning system for neuroendovascular treatments.

During a task to place a detachable coil into a silastic cerebral aneurysm model under biplane X-ray fluoroscopy, gaze points were recorded using a head-mount eye-tracking device.

During the task, 91% of fixations were allocated to the monitor displaying fluoroscopic images, and the others to the hands of operators or unspecified visual targets. More than 80% of fixations were located in frontal or lateral fluoroscopic images. Fixations were placed more frequently around the aneurysm than the microcatheter. One operator failed to recognize the timing when the proximal marker of the coil overlapped that of the microcatheter. The subject allocated most fixations to the frontal fluoroscopic image, whereas other subjects placed most fixations to the lateral fluoroscopic image. Furthermore, that operator put no fixations to the proximal marker of the microcatheter.

The results of this preliminary study imply the feasibility of the eye tracking-based learning system for neuroendovascular treatments. The eye-tracking analysis has potential in investigating or preventing procedural failures in neuroendovascular treatments.