2020 年 22 巻 1 号 p. 21-32
Despite the use of surgical navigation systems in endoscopic sinus surgery (ESS), complications are still reported. Surgical outcome can be improved through the provision of adequate support for skills learning. The objectives of this study were to construct a system capable of automatically providing a clear skill evaluation result and to assess the extent to which our system could observe residents’ learning curve. We used the clinical data from the image-guided ESS obtained from the navigation system, which included the tip position and rod orientation of the instrument, using the previous method. Further this study, we calculated the surgical feature parameters (SFPs) and calculated the score for SFPs and constructed the assessment and visualization system. Six expert sinus surgeons and 10 residents performed ESS to evaluate our system, and two residents were tracked over 10 months to establish their learning curve. Our system showed a clear difference between the experts’ and residents’ results. Furthermore, through the 10-month tracking of two residents, our system demonstrated an upward trend. Our system can fully assess residents’ current skill levels. Being able to confirm their progress and skill level through this system is likely to serve as motivation for improvement of residents’ performance.
