Journal Article

Is there a benefit for anesthesiologists of adding difficult airway scenarios for learning fiberoptic intubation skills using virtual reality training? A randomized controlled study

Jefferson, Henry, Mendonca, Cyprian, Baxter, Linden, Geeraerts, Thomas, Fernandez, Thomas, Davies, Tim, Parotto, Matteo, Cailleau, Loic, Minville, Vincent, Fourcade, Olivier, Kurrek, Matt, Bazin, Jean Etienne, Athanassoglou, Vassilis, Sud, Anika

2023

Overview

Fiberoptic intubation for a difficult airway requires significant experience. Traditionally only normal airways were available for high fidelity bronchoscopy simulators. It is not clear if training on difficult airways offers an advantage over training on normal airways. This study investigates the added value of difficult airway scenarios during virtual reality fiberoptic intubation training. A prospective multicentric randomized study was conducted 2019 to 2020, among 86 inexperienced anesthesia residents, fellows and staff. Two groups were compared: Group N (control, n = 43) first trained on a normal airway and Group D (n = 43) first trained on a normal, followed by three difficult airways. All were then tested by comparing their ORSIM ® scores on 5 scenarios (1 normal and 4 difficult airways). The final evaluation ORSIM ® score for the normal airway testing scenario was significantly higher for group N than group D: median score 76% (IQR 56.5–90) versus 58% (IQR 51.5–69, p = 0.0039), but there was no difference in ORSIM ® scores for the difficult intubation testing scenarios. A single exposure to each of 3 different difficult airway scenarios did not lead to better fiberoptic intubation skills on previously unseen difficult airways, when compared to multiple exposures to a normal airway scenario. This finding may be due to the learning curve of approximately 5–10 exposures to a specific airway scenario required to reach proficiency.

• Publisher: Public Library of Science,Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subject: Airway management / Anesthesia / Anesthesiologists / Biology and Life Sciences / Bronchoscopy / Computer & video games / Computer and Information Sciences / Computer applications / Consent / Cysts / Engineering and Technology / Equipment and supplies / Exposure / Fiber optics / Humans / Intubation / Intubation, Intratracheal / Learning Curve / Learning curves / Medicine and Health Sciences / Methods / Oxygen saturation / Physical Sciences / Practice / Prospective Studies / Respiratory tract / Simulation / Simulator fidelity / Simulators / Skills / Social Sciences / Training / Virtual Reality