Digitale Trainingskonzepte in der Knieendoprothetik

In recent years, there has been a substantial shift from conventional total knee arthroplasty (TKA) surgery with mechanical alignment towards a digital, patient-specific technique. These changes have led to specific challenges including surgeon training. In this paper, modern training concepts in general and experiences with simulator training, in particular, are presented.

In the last 3 years, more than 20 training courses with more than 300 surgeons have been performed using a knee simulator. This simulator allows training of all modern alignment philosophies on 200 patient datasets. Fully automatic evaluation and a comparison function are based on specific algorithms. Results of some courses have been evaluated and presented.

Independent of surgical experience of the trainees, an improvement on decision quality and efficiency could be measured for all groups. Trainees reported that this simulator training has positively supported their transition towards digital surgery and modern alignment philosophies.

Digital surgical techniques and patient-specific alignment philosophies can be successfully trained with the help of this knee simulator. This leads to an improvement of quality, efficiency, and surgeon satisfaction. Based on these results, digital education tools seem to be a promising option allowing a successful transition from conventional mechanical TKA surgery to digital, patient-specific techniques. Thus, simulator training can be seen as a useful addition to classical surgical training.