Porcine esophagus: ex vivo laparoscopic training model for Heller's myotomy and Dor's funduplication

Abstract

Mastery of advanced procedures in laparoscopy is important for surgeons, therefore training is essential. Heller's myotomy and Dor's fundoplication require the development of abilities and skills to perform the surgery safely and effectively, overcoming the learning curve is a challenge for the surgeon in training, so the porcine esophagus is proposed as an ex vivo model of laparoscopic training in order to develop the necessary skills to successfully carry out the surgical procedure. Objective: To apply the porcine esophagus as an ex vivo model for laparoscopic training of Heller's myotomy and Dor's fundoplication. Methods: A prospective, experimental and longitudinal study was carried out, applied by the authors in a period of 17 weeks, in sessions of 1 hour each, one session per week. Results: 17 practices carried out by the author were carried out, evaluated by expert surgeons, observing an increase in the score obtained on the GOALS scale and a decrease in execution time as the number of practices with a high significant influence increase, according to Kendall's tau-B (p=0.000). Conclusion: The ex vivo model allowed recreating most of the surgical steps and stood out as a useful and valuable tool, decreasing the execution time of the procedure and significantly increasing laparoscopic skills.