Measurement of Cannula Insertion Forces in a Brain Phantom to Estimate Required Forces for a Training Simulator

For residents in neurosurgery, it is crucial to have regular access to training opportunities. But such opportunities are scarce and training models only represent one standard anatomy. Training phantoms with anatomical individualities or examples of different pathologies are very limited, since modifications to a physical model are intricate.

Virtual Reality (VR) applied in neurosurgery planning and training has a big potential to increase efficiency and to improve surgery outcome [1]. Combined with a haptic feedback device, VR training has the capability to further increase the immersive experience and realism that help exploring individual anatomic features or pathologies based on patients CT scan data [2].