Usability analysis in surgical prosthetics application for patient specific implants PSI

Abstract

Objective: Analyze and validate usability of three PSI alternatives by measuring criteria such as: efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction. Throughout analysis an alternative which offers the best solution to the case study was validated. Methods: An experiment was developed with 6 participants skilled in cranio-maxillofacial surgery. Experts, using PSI and a prototyped skull corresponding with case study, simulated surgical pre-planning. Two of the PSI were designed by the project and one was commercial type. Results: It is evident that PSI alternatives, which were designed for case study were better valued compared with commercial alternative type one. This commercial-type alternative did not achieve expectations of participants in terms of surgical and usability. In addition, commercial alternative makes placement and fixation process more difficulty in the bone defect than proposed PSI. Conclusions: Usability validation was conducted in this study, allows identifying relevance of PSI design applied to cranioplasty procedures. Its relevance increases the possibility of successful surgery and postoperative procedures. It is necessary to perform future experiments in non-simulated surgical environments, where results might be more accurate.