Performance in a Simulated Virtual Reality Anterior Cervical Discectomy and Fusion Task: Disc Residual, Rate of Removal, and Efficiency Analyses

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) is among the most common spine procedures. The Sim-Ortho virtual reality simulator platform contains a validated ACDF simulated task for performance assessment. This study aims to develop a methodology to extract three-dimensional data and reconstruct and quantitate specific simulated disc tissues to generate novel metrics to analyze performance metrics of skilled and less skilled participants.METHODS: We used open-source platforms to develop a methodology to extract three-dimensional information from ACDF simulation data. Metrics generated included, efficiency index, disc volumes removed from defined regions, and rate of tissue removal from superficial, central, and deep disc regions. A pilot study was performed to assess the utility of this methodology to assess expertise during the ACDF simulated procedure.RESULTS: The system outlined, extracts data allowing the development of a methodology which accurately reconstructs and quantitates 3-dimensional disc volumes. In the pilot study, data sets from 27 participants, divided into postresident, resident, and medical student groups, allowed assessment of multiple novel metrics, including efficiency index (surgical time spent in actively removing disc), where the postresident group spent 61.8% of their time compared with 53% and 30.2% for the resident and medical student groups, respectively (P = .01). During the annulotomy component, the postresident group removed 47.4% more disc than the resident groups and 102% more than the medical student groups (P = .03).CONCLUSION: The methodology developed in this study generates novel surgical procedural metrics from 3-dimensional data generated by virtual reality simulators and can be used to assess surgical performance.