Design of a route registration system for ENT surgery training

Abstract

The purpose of this document is to describe and explain the design of a tracking system which allows the objective measurement of the kinematic and force variables in tasks oriented to ENT (ear, nose and throat) minimally invasive surgery. The designed device consists of a software and hardware system which records the surgeon's skills while executing training tasks for otorhinolaryngologic surgery on unanimated models. A set of movement, position and pressure sensors, records the path followed by the tip of the surgical instrument. From the records made by these sensors, six different parameters (time, depth perception, path length, motion smoothness, response orientation and force) are calculated and the performance of the surgeon is quantitatively registered. It resulted feasible to determine the skills of the surgeon following this approach.