Virtual interrupted suturing exercise with the endo stitch suturing device

Abstract

This paper presents the surgical suturing simulator for wound closure, which is designed for education and training purposes. Currently it is designed specifically to support a simulation of the AutosutureTM Endo StitchTM suturing, but could be extended for other surgical instruments designed for intracorporeal suturing. The simulator allows a trainee to perform a virtual wound closure by interrupted suture with real surgical instrument handles customized to fit on haptic devices. The wound simulation is based on a triangular surface mesh embedded in a linear hexahedral finite element mesh, whereas the suture simulation is based on a simplified Cosserat theory of elastic rods. Our novel heuristic combination of physically-based and control-based simulations makes the simulator run efficiently in real time on mid-level desktop PCs and notebooks. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.