Evaluation of User Performance in Simulation-Based Diagnostic Cerebral Angiography Training

Simulation of anatomically complex procedures, such as angiography, is becoming more practical, however, computer-based modules require extensive research to assess their effectiveness. We organized two training schemas - alternating cases and consistent cases - and hypothesized that the alternating practice cases would be beneficial to test performance. Eight residents (4 radiology/4 neurosurgery) and 8 anatomy graduate students were trained on the Simbionix (TM) simulator in order to assess skill acquisition in diagnostic cerebral angiography over 8 sessions. We found that participants improve on total procedure time and total fluoroscopy time (p<0.05), but not on contrast injected or roadmaps created. There were no significant differences between alternating and consistent training types. Additional work needs to be done with higher sample numbers and visuospatial scores as criteria.