Influence of patient-specific rehearsal on operative metrics and technical success for endovascular aneurysm repair

Introduction: Patient-specific rehearsal (PsR) is a recent technology within virtual reality (VR) simulation that lets the operators train on patient-specific data in a simulated environment prior to the procedure. Endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR) is a complex procedure where operative metrics and technical success might improve after PsR. Material and methods: We compared technical success and operative metrics (endovascular procedure time, contralateral gate cannulation time, fluoroscopy time, total radiation dose, number of angiograms and contrast medium use) between 30 patients, where the operators performed PsR (the PsR group), and 30 patients without PsR (the control group). Results: The endovascular procedure time was significantly shorter in the PsR group than in the control group (median 44 versus 55 min, p = .017). The other operative metrics were similar. Technical success rates were higher in the PsR group, 96.7% primary and assisted primary outcome versus 90.0% in the control group. The differences were not significant (p = .076). Conclusions: PsR before EVAR reduced endovascular procedure time, and our results indicate that it might improve technical success, but further studies are needed to confirm those results.