A Three‐Dimensional Print Model of the Pterygopalatine Fossa Significantly Enhances the Learning Experience

Abstract

The pterygopalatine fossa (PPF) is a small bilateral space deep within the skull that acts as a major neurovascular junction between the oral cavity, nasopharynx, orbit, infratemporal fossa, and middle cranial fossa. Because of its important crossroads of afferent sympathetic, and parasympathetic fibers, students, radiologists, ophthalmologists, neurosurgeons, and otorhinolaryngologists need to have a firm understanding of the PPF. However, its small volume, poor accessibility and numerous neurovascular connections make it a difficult space to comprehend using two‐dimensional illustrations and a single cadaveric dissection. We hypothesized that a 3D model of the PPF significantly improves the student's understanding of the PPF's boundaries, its communicating channels, and neurovascular structures as compared to traditional forms of pedagogy by promoting visual and kinesthetic learning experiences. We developed a 3D model of the PPF and an instructional manual describing the model. We evaluated our model by analyzing student performance on pre‐ and post‐quizzes and a student user satisfaction survey based on 5‐point Likert scale. A total of 43 undergraduate students enrolled in pre‐medical and dental schools completed the study; 21 students used a human half‐skull (control group) and 22 students used the 3D model (intervention group). The intervention group performed significantly better on the post‐quiz (p=0.01) when compared to the pre‐quiz; however, the control group did not improve their quiz scores (p=0.17). Surveys also indicated that the model enhanced the learning experience. We conclude that anatomy educational tools such as 3D models that would be easily accessible outside of the laboratory promote student learning ability. Support or Funding Information UT System Shine Academy of Health Science Education Small Grants Program to Drs. Ramaswamy Sharma and Arunabh Bhattacharya This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.

The role of a 3D printed model in the teaching of human anatomy: a meta-analysis

“…However, the quality evaluation of the literature for this is low as well (Table S1). Six studies investigated the satisfaction of students in the 3D printing and conventional groups with their learning [16,23,25,26] [33,34]. ve of these studies showed that the students' satisfaction in the 3D group was better than the conventional group.…”

“…We searched the relevant databases and read the abstracts and full texts of articles found during this search. Seventeen studies were included in the analysis [8,16,17,[21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34].…”

“…Six studies compared 3D printed models with conventional nervous system models [17,21,26,28,31,34]. There were 198 in the experimental group and 195 in the control group.…”

“…Six studies described the level of satisfaction in the 3D printing and conventional groups [16,23,25,26] [ 33,34]. Results from ve studies indicated that students in the 3D printing group were more satis ed compared to students in the conventional group.…”

How to Formulate for Structure and Texture via Medium of Additive Manufacturing-A Review

“…There are several reports on amenable 3D printing technologies for pharmaceutical manufacturing [17,18], which are applicable to different drug development phases (early-phase screening, testing, manufacturing, and dispensing) [19]. Human medicine, as well as veterinary medicine, can benefit from technological advances in 3D printing [20][21][22][23][24]. 3D printing is important to dentistry and can be used to print personalised braces for patients [25,26].…”