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

• Main Authors: Andinet Enquobahrie, Sam Horvath, Sreekanth Arikatla, Avi Rosenberg, Kevin Cleary, Karun Sharma
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2019-10-01
• Series: Healthcare Technology Letters
• Subjects: biomedical ultrasonics; public domain software; paediatrics; computer based training; diseases; patient treatment; medical computing; surgery; biomedical education; kidney; needles; kidney failure; renal pathologies; competent biopsy technique; high yield biopsy samples; virtual simulator; procedural skill competence; us-guided renal biopsy; low-cost hardware components; open source software libraries; face validation; us images; needle visualisation; us-guided needle biopsy; clinical experts; clinical validation study; ultrasound-guided renal biopsy virtual trainer; chronic kidney disease; adult-paediatric nephrologists; interventional-diagnostic radiologists; hand-eye coordination; web-based application; automated skill assessment; tracking modules; time 3.0 year to 23.0 year
• Online Access: https://digital-library.theiet.org/content/journals/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.