Cryopreserved tracheal segments: a new tool for bench surgical training in thoracic surgery.

PURPOSE To present a new low-cost high fidelity bench model of cryopreserved trachea that can be used to learn surgical skills from medical students to cardiothoracic surgery fellows. METHODS Ten tracheas were harvested from ten non-trachea related research dogs at the moment of euthanasia. Each trachea was trimmed in six or seven rings segments. They were cryopreserved and stored during 60 days. The day programmed for surgical skills practice, they were thawed to room temperature. RESULTS Forty segments have been used. After defrosting, all the segments kept their normal anatomic shape and structural integrity. Two incisions were made on every tracheal segment and sutured with running or separate stitches with 5-0 polypropilene. There were no complications such as cartilage ruptures, neither tears on the mucosae, the cartilages nor the membranous posterior membrane. CONCLUSIONS The cryopreserved trachea is a high fidelity, practical, reproducible, portable, low-cost bench model. It allows cardiothoracic fellows to learn how to handle a trachea, as well as to perfect their surgical and suture abilities before applying them on a real patient's trachea.