Virtual temporal bone simulators and their use in surgical training: a narrative review

Objective Temporal bone dissection is a difficult skill to acquire, and the challenge has recently been further compounded by a reduction in conventional surgical training opportunities during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Consequently, there has been renewed interest in ear simulation as an adjunct to surgical training for trainees. We review the state-of-the-art virtual temporal bone simulators for surgical training.Materials and methods A narrative review of the current literature was performed following a Medline search using a pre-determined search strategy.Results and analysis Sixty-one studies were included. There are five validated temporal bone simulators: Voxel-Man, CardinalSim, Ohio State University Simulator, Melbourne University's Virtual Reality Surgical Simulation and Visible Ear Simulator. The merits of each have been reviewed, alongside their role in surgical training.Conclusion Temporal bone simulators have been demonstrated to be useful adjuncts to conventional surgical training methods and are likely to play an increasing role in the future.