HoloPointer: a virtual augmented reality pointer for laparoscopic surgery training

PURPOSE: In laparoscopic surgery training, experts guide novice physicians to desired instrument positions or indicate relevant areas of interest. These instructions are usually given via verbal communication or using physical pointing devices. To facilitate a sterile work flow and to improve training, new guiding methods are needed. This work proposes to use optical see-through augmented reality to visualize an interactive virtual pointer on the laparoscopic. METHODS: After an interdisciplinary development, the pointer’s applicability and feasibility for training was evaluated and it was compared to a standard condition based on verbal and gestural communication only. In this study, ten surgical trainees were guided by an experienced trainer during cholecystectomies on a laparoscopic training simulator. All trainees completed a virtual cholecystectomy with and without the interactive virtual pointer in alternating order. Measures included procedure time, economy of movement and error rates. RESULTS: Results of standardized variables revealed significantly improved economy of movement (p = 0.047) and error rates (p = 0.047), as well as an overall improved user performance (Total z-score; p = 0.031) in conditions using the proposed method. CONCLUSION: The proposed HoloPointer is a feasible and applicable tool for laparoscopic surgery training. It improved objective performance metrics without prolongation of the task completion time in this pre-clinical setup. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s11548-020-02272-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.