Virtual planning may help with nasal obstruction surgery

(HealthDay)—Otolaryngologists report an overall positive experience with a virtual surgery planning tool for nasal airway obstruction (NAO), according to a study published online Oct. 12 in JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery.

Derek L. Vanhille, M.D., from the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, and colleagues sought surgeon feedback about a virtual surgery planning tool for NAO based on computational fluid dynamics simulations. They conducted 60-minute face-to-face interviews with nine board-certified otolaryngologists.

The researchers found that the nine participants performed a mean of 2.2 nasal surgeries per month. On a scale of 1 (not at all) to 5 (completely), the surgeon mean score for how realistic the virtual models were compared with actual surgery was 3.4. Using the same scale, participants gave the planning tool a mean score of 2.6 for how much it changed their decision making. Using a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), the surgeons gave the tool a 5.1 for perceived usefulness and a 5.7 for their attitude toward using it.

"Surgeons felt that future applications and areas of study of the virtual surgery planning tool include its potential role for patient counseling, selecting appropriate surgical candidates, and identifying which anatomical structures should be targeted for surgical correction," write the authors.