Development and evaluation of a surgical 3D simulation model on submental flap surgery training

The purpose of the present study was to design and assess a 3D simulation model for submental flap surgery in training oral and maxillofacial surgery (OMFS) residents.

This quasi-experimental study involved a total of 20 OMFS residents attending and was conducted from September 2023 to December 2023. A 3D submental flap surgical phantom was designed using Mimics V.21 software and printed using fused deposition modeling technology. Participants were first tested on their knowledge of submental flap surgery before being randomly assigned to experimental or control groups. The experimental group received a lecture and demonstration using the developed phantom, while the control group had traditional lecture education only. Afterward, the same test was administered to all participants post-training. Pre- and post-test scores were calculated and compared between the two groups. p-Value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

The average pre-intervention test scores in the control and experimental group, were 2.5 ± 1.43 and 3 ± 0.816, respectively (p = 0.35). Post-intervention, the experimental group exhibited significantly higher exam scores compared to the group who had only received academic lecture training (6.9 ± 0.87 vs. 4.9 ± 0.99) (p < 0.001). Irrespective of the applied teaching method, both groups showed a significant increase in exam scores after receiving submental flap training (p < 0.001 for both groups, paired-sample t-test).

The use of the developed submental flap phantom model significantly improved OMFS residents' test scores and knowledge of the surgical technique, suggesting its potential integration into the conventional resident training curriculum.