Is patient-specific pre-operative preparation feasible in a clinical environment? A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Technical difficulty of an operation is associated with patient and disease characteristics, indicating the necessity for surgeons to exercise patient-specific preparation. Such methods have been shown to be effective in the simulation suite, however, application in a real clinical environment has been sporadic. This systematic review attempts to answer if patient-specific preparation in challenging surgical procedures is feasible. A systematic review of OvidMedline, Embase and all Evidence Based Medicine review databases, was conducted in search of studies who described surgical rehearsals in all specialties. Following the application of defined inclusion and exclusion criteria relevant data were extracted and summarised. Descriptive synthesis was performed for all included studies and meta-analysis of data was applied when possible. Of fourty-nine studies included, thirty-seven were case-series, ten were non-randomised comparative trials and two randomised controlled trials. Accuracy of applied methods ranged from 66.7 to 100% and a good outcome was seen in 60-100% of operations. Meta-analysis of studies comparing rehearsals to real procedures (same patients) showed that simulated procedures were significantly faster than real ones (SMD = -1.56 [-2.19, -0.93] p < 0.00001) but were similar in other outcomes (fluoroscopy time: SMD = -0.1 [-0.63, 0.42] p = 0.7, fluoroscopy volume: SMD = -0.43[-0.97, 0.11], p = 0.12). Meta-analysis of studies comparing pre-operative rehearsals to standard treatment (two distinct groups of patients), demonstrated that real procedures were performed quicker if pre-operative rehearsal took place (SMD = -0.47 [-0.79, -0.16], P  = 0.003) but the immediate clinical outcome was similar for practiced and not practiced operations (SMD =0.03[-0.23, 0.29], p = 0.82). Current evidence suggests that patient-specific pre-operative preparation is feasible and safe and decreases operational time.