Description du projet
Tissus artificiels pour la formation chirurgicale
La formation chirurgicale sur le développement de la coordination œil-main, de la dextérité et d’autres compétences chirurgicales implique la pratique sur des cadavres et des animaux. Parallèlement aux simulateurs virtuels, ces outils permettent aux chirurgiens d’affiner leurs compétences sans le risque associé à la réalisation d’interventions sur des patients réels. Cependant, la disponibilité limitée et le coût élevé de ce type de formation créent un besoin d’alternatives. Financé par le programme Actions Marie Skłodowska-Curie, le projet ALPHA-STEM entend mettre au point des modèles synthétiques artificiels, appelés «fantômes», qui récapitulent les structures anatomiques et fournissent un retour tactile précis pour les tâches chirurgicales. Les chercheurs concevront, créeront et testeront des matériaux avancés pour imiter divers organes et tissus humains. ALPHA-STEM introduira un changement radical dans la manière dont les chirurgiens s’entraînent et se préparent à opérer des êtres humains.
Objectif
Research has shown that the success rate in many types of surgeries is strictly related to the experience of the surgeon. However, early in their career, trainees are not given the opportunity to operate on a sufficient number of patients nor to perform an exhaustive mix of procedures. The scenario has been further worsened by the reduction of assisted training hours in Europe (since 2009) and US (since 2011). Training and technical tasks are usually practised on cadavers, animals or using virtual simulators. However, all these alternatives present difficulties: limited availability, expensive handling and preservation processes (cadaveric training), nonhuman anatomical structures (animal training), costly set-up, and doubtful skills transfer to the real operating theatre (virtual simulators). A potential solution is to promote the use of artificial synthetic models, also known as phantoms. Phantoms are reproduction of human parts and organs that allow the trainee to practice positioning of the anatomical structures as well as hand coordination. Unfortunately, they lack of reliable tactile feedback (e.g. palpation) and real tissue deformation patterns which critically reduce the fidelity of the surgical training.
The main objective of this project is to overcome the present limitations by developing phantoms capable of providing detailed anatomical structures along with an accurate tactile response when performing surgical tasks such as cutting, indention and suturing. The proposed investigation is aimed at designing, making and testing synthetic advanced materials tailored to reproduce the mechanical response of different human organs and tissues (lung, brain, liver, skin, cartilage, etc.). Direct comparisons with experimental data on organic tissues and feedback from a number of experienced surgeons will be used to validate the effectiveness of the proposed solutions during this research journey towards safer surgeries.
Champ scientifique
Programme(s)
Régime de financement
MSCA-IF-GF - Global FellowshipsCoordinateur
20133 Milano
Italie