Analysis of the video motion tracking system 'Kinovea' to assess surgical movements during robot-assisted radical prostatectomy

Backgrounds Robot-assisted surgery facilitated the possibility to evaluate the surgeon's skills by recording and evaluating the robot surgical images. The aim of this study was to investigate the possibility of using a computer programme (Kinovea) for objective assessment of surgical movements in previously recorded in existing robot-assisted radical prostatectomy (RARP) videos.Methods Twelve entire RARP procedures were analysed by a trained researcher using the computer programme "Kinovea" to perform semi-automated assessment of surgical movements.Results Data analysis showed Kinovea was on average able to automatically assess only 22% of the total surgical duration per video of the robot-assisted surgery. On average, it lasted 4 hours of continued monitoring by the researcher to assess one RARP using Kinovea.Conclusion Although we proved it is technically possible to use the Kinovea system in retrospective analysis of surgical movement in robot-assisted surgery, the acquired data do not give a comprehensive enough analysis of the video to be used in skills assessment.