Section: New Results

Training for retina surgery

Participants : Rémi Bessard Duparc, Stéphane Cotin.

Retina surgery is an increasingly performed procedure for the treatment of a wide spectrum of retinal pathologies. Yet, as most micro-surgical techniques, it requires long training periods before being mastered. To properly answer requests from clinicians for highly realistic training on one hand, and new requirements from accreditation or recertification from surgical societies on the other hand, we are developing a high-fidelity training system for retinal surgery.

This simulator is built upon our strong scientific expertise in the field of real-time simulation and a success story for technology transfer in the field of cataract surgery simulation. The simulation system is based on the Open Source simulation platform SOFA, and relies on expertise from our partners to ensure clinical and industrial relevance (this work is funded through the ANR project RESET). A first version of the training system has been developed and demonstrated in different ophthalmology conferences.

Figure 11. Left: the simulation is performed on a dedicated hardware including a microscope and instruments. Middle: The instruments are inserted in the eye. Right: The epiretinal membrane is removed.