Toward a Realistic Simulation of Organ Dissection

Whilst laparoscopic surgical simulators are becoming increasingly realistic they can not, as yet, fully replicate the experience of live surgery. In particular tissue dissection in one task that is particularly challenging to replicate. Limitation of current attempts to simulate tissue dissection include: poor visual rendering; over simplification of the task and; unrealistic tissue properties. In an effort to generate a more realistic model of tissue dissection in laparoscopic surgery we propose a novel method based on task analysis. Initially we have chosen to model only the basic geometrics of this task rather than a whole laparoscopic procedure. Preliminary work has led to the development of a real time simulator performing organ dissection with a haptic thread at 1000Hz. A virtual cutting tool, manipulated through a haptic device, in combination with 1D and 2D soft-tissue models accuratelyreplicatetheprocessoflaparoscopictissuedissection.