Development and face validation of ultrasound-guided renal biopsy virtual trainer

• Published in: Healthcare technology letters Vol. 6; no. 6; pp. 210 - 213
• Main Authors: Enquobahrie, Andinet, Horvath, Sam, Arikatla, Sreekanth, Rosenberg, Avi, Cleary, Kevin, Sharma, Karun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England The Institution of Engineering and Technology 01-12-2019; John Wiley & Sons, Inc; Wiley
• Subjects: adult-paediatric nephrologists; Apprenticeship; automated skill assessment; biomedical education; biomedical ultrasonics; Biopsy; chronic kidney disease; clinical experts; clinical validation study; competent biopsy technique; computer based training; diseases; face validation; Feedback; hand-eye coordination; Haptics; high yield biopsy samples; interventional-diagnostic radiologists; kidney; kidney failure; low-cost hardware components; medical computing; Medical education; needle visualisation; needles; Nephrology; open source software libraries; paediatrics; patient treatment; procedural skill competence; public domain software; Rapid prototyping; renal pathologies; Simulation; Skills; Special Issue: Papers from the 13th Workshop on Augmented Environments for Computer Assisted Interventions; surgery; time 3.0 year to 23.0 year; tracking modules; Training; Ultrasonic imaging; ultrasound-guided renal biopsy virtual trainer; US images; US‐guided needle biopsy; US‐guided renal biopsy; virtual simulator; Web‐based application; United States > US; competent biopsy technique; needles; ultrasound-guided renal biopsy virtual trainer; chronic kidney disease; automated skill assessment; public domain software; low-cost hardware components; interventional-diagnostic radiologists; US-guided renal biopsy; biomedical ultrasonics; kidney failure; needle visualisation; US-guided needle biopsy; paediatrics; kidney; patient treatment; computer based training; clinical validation study; Web-based application; biomedical education; clinical experts; US images; adult-paediatric nephrologists; tracking modules; diseases; face validation; renal pathologies; high yield biopsy samples; open source software libraries; hand-eye coordination; time 3.0 year to 23.0 year; virtual simulator; procedural skill competence; medical computing; surgery
• ISSN: 2053-3713; 2053-3713
• DOI: 10.1049/htl.2019.0081

The overall prevalence of chronic kidney disease in the general population is ∼14% with more than 661,000 Americans having a kidney failure. Ultrasound (US)-guided renal biopsy is a critically important tool in the evaluation and management of renal pathologies. This Letter presents KBVTrainer, a virtual simulator that the authors developed to train clinicians to improve procedural skill competence in US-guided renal biopsy. The simulator was built using low-cost hardware components and open source software libraries. They conducted a face validation study with five experts who were either adult/pediatric nephrologists or interventional/diagnostic radiologists. The trainer was rated very highly (>4.4) for the usefulness of the real US images (highest at 4.8), potential usefulness of the trainer in training for needle visualization, tracking, steadiness and hand-eye coordination, and overall promise of the trainer to be useful for training US-guided needle biopsies. The lowest score of 2.4 was received for the look and feel of the US probe and needle compared to clinical practice. The force feedback received a moderate score of 3.0. The clinical experts provided abundant verbal and written subjective feedback and were highly enthusiastic about using the trainer as a valuable tool for future trainees.