title: Cryopreserved tracheal segments: a new tool for bench surgical training in thoracic surgery.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To present a new low-cost high fidelity bench model of cryopreserved trachea that can be used to learn surgical skills from medical students to cardiothoracic surgery fellows.
  
  
  METHODS
  Ten tracheas were harvested from ten non-trachea related research dogs at the moment of euthanasia. Each trachea was trimmed in six or seven rings segments. They were cryopreserved and stored during 60 days. The day programmed for surgical skills practice, they were thawed to room temperature.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Forty segments have been used. After defrosting, all the segments kept their normal anatomic shape and structural integrity. Two incisions were made on every tracheal segment and sutured with running or separate stitches with 5-0 polypropilene. There were no complications such as cartilage ruptures, neither tears on the mucosae, the cartilages nor the membranous posterior membrane.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The cryopreserved trachea is a high fidelity, practical, reproducible, portable, low-cost bench model. It allows cardiothoracic fellows to learn how to handle a trachea, as well as to perfect their surgical and suture abilities before applying them on a real patient's trachea.
authors: Lung Transplantation Research Unit, National Institute of Respiratory Diseases Ismael Cosio Villegas, Mexico.
authors: Avelina
authors: A
authors: Sotres-Vega
authors: Jaime
authors: J
authors: Villalba-Caloca
authors: Farid
authors: F
authors: Ramirez-Zamora
authors: Diana
authors: D
authors: Pérez-Covarrubias
authors: J Alfredo
authors: JA
authors: Santibáñez-Salgado
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D015925:Cryopreservation / Q000379:methods*; D004285:Dogs; D004501:Education, Medical / Q000379:methods*; D023421:Models, Animal; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D019616:Thoracic Surgical Procedures / Q000193:education* / Q000379:methods*; D013997:Time Factors; D014132:Trachea / Q000601:surgery*