Eyeworld

MAR 2020

EyeWorld is the official news magazine of the American Society of Cataract & Refractive Surgery.

Issue link: https://digital.eyeworld.org/i/1215009

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 28 of 118

26 | EYEWORLD | MARCH 2020 N PRESENTATION SPOTLIGHT EWS Contact Young: drnoahyoung@gmail.com by Stefanie Petrou Binder, MD Contributing Writer I nvestigators from New York University School of Medicine have developed a low- cost, smartphone-based surgical simulator for ophthalmology training purposes and potential use in developing countries. In an experiment that included surgeons and non-surgeons, the novel simulator was implemented to perform different surgical tasks, including passing a phaco needle through a pupil of decreasing width. The study was shown as an e-poster at the 2019 ASCRS ASOA Annual Meeting. According to the e-poster's first author, Noah Young, surgical simulators benefit oph- thalmology residents and ultimately patients. "The cost of these simulators, however, is pro- hibitive to most ophthalmology departments in developing nations. Our objective was to create a useful ophthalmic surgical simulator for fine motor skills training at a cost that is affordable to any residency training program," he said. Simulator costs Mr. Young and his colleagues set a $50 produc- tion budget for the entire simulator, including hardware and software. Simulator software was developed using the Unity platform (Unity Technologies), employing smartphone sensors to detect movement. The smartphone was a used Apple iPhone 4S. The hardware element was 3D printed from polylactic acid (PLA) plastic on a LulzBot Mini 2 desktop 3D printer (Aleph Objects). The 3D model design was developed on Fusion 360 (Autodesk). The material costs included the iPhone 4S ($27.95), the wooden base ($6.99), hardware ($4.11), the PLA filament 98 g plastic substrate ($2.45), an epoxy finish 1 oz ($1.07), and a Lego universal joint ($0.70), resulting in a total of $43.27 for the finished product. "We have released the software and 3D printer files at nydevices.com, so that anyone can reproduce the simulator," Mr. Young said. Simulator experiment The experimental design included six sur- geons, including surgical residents and anterior segment attendings, and 11 non-surgeons, including pre-surgical residents and high school students. After a practice level, each participant performed increasingly difficult tasks ranging from levels 1–4, which consisted of passing a phaco needle through a pupil of decreasing width. The main outcome measures were the number of successful entries though the pupil and the number of complications, defined as inadvertently striking tissue with the phaco needle. The simulator scored successful entry through the pupil as well as accidental trauma to the adjacent tissues. Surgeons performed superiorly to non-sur- geons in passing the phaco needle through the pupil, reaching statistical significance in level 1 (p<.05) and showing a non-significant trend in higher levels. Surgeons also demonstrated fewer collisions with adjacent tissue than non-sur- geons (p<.01 for level 1). "The results of the simulator task demon- strated significant differences in performance between surgeons and non-surgeons, with sur- geons demonstrating better performance in the task of passing the phaco needle through the pupil, most significantly at level 1, and showing significantly better performance in avoiding injury to adjacent tissue, also at level 1," Mr. Young said. Novel surgical simulator helps develop fine motor skills About the source Noah Young Project affiliated with the Department of Ophthalmology New York University School of Medicine New York, New York Relevant disclosures Young: None The assembled simulator costs less than $50. Individual components are available for download at NYDevices. com. Source: Noah Young continued on page 28

Articles in this issue

Links on this page

Archives of this issue

view archives of Eyeworld - MAR 2020