The Pulsatile Organ Perfusion - a chance to reduce animal experiments in minimally invasive surgery training.

The momentum brought about by the expansion in the field of minimally invasive surgery (MIS) and the endeavor of many surgeons to apply this operative technique, raises both quantitative as well as qualitative problems as far as the training in minimally invasive surgery is concerned. In the respective courses the training usually begins with synthetic dummies and/or animal organs in the simulation trainer. In the next - and already last - step before the clinical operation, the procedure is practiced on anesthetized animals. The wide gap between basic training and the animal experiment is filled by the Pulsatile Organ Perfusion (POP). POP simulates blood supply of organs or organsystems ideally and therefore it is the ideal method for completing training in laparoscopic and thoracoscopic techniques as this method would be used at any hospital or laboratory. The quality of simulating operations is excellent, the method is cost-effective and does not require the expense and infrastructure of the experimental animal laboratory. Furthermore the amount of animals required for advanced MIS-training will be greatly reduced.