• 3D-Lab:
  Per Larsen
  Jon Sporring
  Tron Darvann
  
  

• Dept. of Ear Surgery, Copenhagen University Hospital:
  Mads Sølvsten Sørensen (Principal Investigator)
  Thomas Frisch

Training otological surgeons and planning surgical procedures for the middle-ear are two activities that require extensive use of cadavers; surgeons often re-train and plan procedures employing cadavers, while medical students use cadavers to acquire necessary surgical skills. However, high-fidelity computer-based modelling, simulation and visualization systems can be used to augment such activities, thereby reducing the cost of training, and giving greater flexibility for clinicians and clinicians-to-be to explore and design procedures[1].
We propose in this project to develop the first stage of a complete virtual surgical drill and surgery simulation system for the human middle ear. Such a project, successfully completed, provides the following benefits.

• Patient care is improved because clinicians are able to simulate and evaluate surgical procedures prior to the actual operative treatment. Techniques that may not be attempted under normal circumstances may become feasible after simulation and training.
• Training costs are reduced as fewer cadavers are required for training otological surgeons; this is especially critical as cadavers are becoming increasingly difficult to obtain.
  
  
  

Mads S. Sørensen, Andy B. Dobrzeniecki, Per Larsen, Thomas Frisch, Jon Sporring, Tron A. Darvann:

The Visible Ear: A Digital Inage Library of the Temporal Bone. In 'ORL Journal for Oto-Rhino-Laryngology and Its Related Specialties' 64|6|02   November-December 2002

'Readme.txt'  found on the CD distributed with the ORL journal