The Validity of Training Endoscopic Sinus and Skull Base Surgery Techniques on the Experimental Head Model

Objectives: The aim of this study was to better understand the usual learning curve in acquiring endonasal endoscopic sinus and skull base surgery (ESSBS) techniques during the novice training on the lamb's head model. Methods: Ten novices were asked to perform 10 bilateral dissections on the particular lamb's head each. The dissections were uniform, consisted of 10 well-defined steps, beginning from the simple removal of the inferior turbinate, and ending with more complicated procedures like cerebrospinal fluid leak repair, Draf 3 procedure for the frontal sinus and elevation of the nasal septal flap. The dissections have been supervised by experienced surgeons. A set of standard ESSBS instruments and 0° and 45° endoscopes have been used under the navigational system. The time required to complete each step has been measured in minutes. Results: In general and quite expectedly, time rates have been obviously lowering as the number of the dissections performed has been growing in each of the participants. Conclusion: Training of the endonasal ESSBS techniques on the lamb's head proved to be useful for novices in getting basic surgical skills in the field. Because of the high degree of anatomic similarity and high level of the anatomic dimensions congruency between the lamb's head and human head (sheep's head has bigger dimensions!) it proved to be an essential preparation for the human cadaveric dissection. The median values of the time rates having been needed to complete the particular of the 10 steps in the last novices' dissections could be accepted as an orientation, just suggesting that once the time needed to complete 1 of the 10 steps has been and achieved by the particular novice, this could be an approximate sign of the maturity for the exercises on human cadaver head. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Nuray Bayar Muluk, MD, Birlik Mahallesi, Zirvekent 2. Etap Sitesi, C-3 Blok, No 6-3/43, 06610 Çankaya, Ankara, Turkey; E-mail: nuray.bayar@yahoo.com; nurayb@hotmail.com. Received 23 August, 2017 Accepted 20 September, 2017 The authors report no conflicts of interest. Supplemental digital contents are available for this article. Direct URL citations appear in the printed text and are provided in the HTML and PDF versions of this article on the journal's Web site (http://ift.tt/2iuFjMi). © 2017 by Mutaz B. Habal, MD.

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