WCE 2018: Transferability of Traditional Laparoscopic Skills to Robotic-Assisted Laparoscopic Skills: A Pilot Study in Setting up a Standardized Robotic Training and Assessment

Paris, France (UroToday.com) Dr. Arianto Yuwono, from Tan Tock Hospital in Singapore, aimed to assess the transferability of laparoscopic skills to robotic-assisted laparoscopic skills amongst urology residents. As an introduction to his talk, he explained that there has yet to be a well-established training program for robotic surgical training and that he aimed to gain insight to setting up a standardized robotic training assessment for urology residents.

Dr. Yuwono and team recruited 13 subjects (11 urology residents and 2 experts) to take part in this study. All were asked to complete a Da Vinci Si robot online training module and a basic hands-on training course. They were then asked to complete the following both laparoscopically and robotically after randomization:

1. Peg Transfer Task

2. Pattern Cutting Task

Intracorporeal suturing

Following analysis, they found that when using the robotic surgery platform, residents in the Laparoscopic task first group (LFP) completed the three assigned tasks faster than the Robotic task first group (RSP). Residents in both in LFP and RSP performed intracorporeal suturing better in the robotic surgery platform than the traditional laparoscopic surgery platform. Other results are listed in the table below.

Dr. Arianto Yuwono concluded that laparoscopic skills may confer benefits for performing similar tasks in a robotic surgery platform. He added that however the robotic surgery platform did provide significant advantage over the laparoscopic platform for the suturing task.

Presented by Arianto Yuwono
Authors: Arianto Yuwono, Yuyi Yeow, Keng-Siang Png

Affiliation: Department of Urology, Tan Tock Hospital, Singapore

Written by: Renai Yoon, medical writer for UroToday at the 36th World Congress of Endourology (WCE) and SWL - September 20-23, 2018 Paris, France

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