TURP Validation

 

Background/Problem

The laboratory in the Department of Urology, in conjunction with the Human Interface Technology Laboratory at the University of Washington, built a novel surgical simulator to train and assess transurethral resection skills. It allows the trainer to perform a virtual transurethral resection of the prostate and takes them stepwise through the process, while also allowing the user to focus on specific skills within the procedure. The simulator tracks the scope in the virtual model and records all pertinent interactions with the environment. Unlike past TURP simulators which lacked realistic cutting and bleeding, the simulator cuts tissue, bleeds, has stop-cock irrigant flow control and deforms and provides virtual force-feedback by means of a novel haptics system. It provides objective measurements such as amount of time spent resecting, amount of time spent with orientation, amount of time spent coagulating, amount of tissue resected, amount of blood loss, number of operative errors and the amount of fluid used.

We performed a cross-sectional study on Version 1.0 (results of which led to upgrades to its current form: Version 3.0) of the simulator at the American Urological Association annual meeting. We are planning to use this TURP simulator and we examined face, content, construct and discriminate validity for this trainer to simulate the skills necessary to perform transurethral resection of the prostate. 121 subjects consisting of 72 board-certified urologists, 30 trainees and 19 novices completed the study. They completed a demographic questionnaire, viewed an introductory training video and performed a precompiled 5-minute resection task on the TURP simulator where they were instructed to“efficiently resect as much tissue as possible while avoiding errors and minimizing blood loss, amount of irrigant used, coagulation current and number of cuts.”

Team Members:

• Dr. Rob Sweet, MD

Project View

TURP Simulator

Effectiveness in Metrics

Errors Performed