The effect of virtual reality on temporal bone anatomy evaluation and performance

Purpose There is only limited data on the application of virtual reality (VR) for the evaluation of temporal bone anatomy. The aim of the present study was to compare the VR environment to traditional cross-sectional viewing of computed tomography images in a simulated preoperative planning setting in novice and expert surgeons. Methods A novice ( n = 5) and an expert group ( n = 5), based on their otosurgery experience, were created. The participants were asked to identify 24 anatomical landmarks, perform 11 distance measurements between surgically relevant anatomical structures and 10 fiducial markers on five cadaver temporal bones in both VR environment and cross-sectional viewings in PACS interface. The data on performance time and user-experience (i.e., subjective validation) were collected. Results The novice group made significantly more errors ( p