Introduction: We aim to perform a systematic review of the current use of cadaveric models in urology and analyze their role within urological training and the experimentation of novel surgical techniques.
Evidence acquisition: A systematic review of the current literature was conducted through the Medline and NCBI PubMed, Google Scholar, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) databases in September 2019. All papers published after 2000, concerning studies conducted on human cadaveric models for training in urological surgical procedures, developing of new techniques and technologies were considered for the review.
Evidence synthesis: From the literature search we found a total of 3769 different articles of those only 58 articles were included in the study. Eleven studies (19%) were published between 2000 and 2009, and the trend increased almost fourfold in the following period (2010-2019) with 47 studies (81%) being published. Surprisingly, a clear statement on the approval of the use of cadavers was written in less than 50% of the studies. About the 48% of the studies were aimed to experiment a novel surgical technique while in the 31% of studies the cadavers were used for surgical training. More than half of the studies evaluated did not provide any information about the type and method of preparation of cadaveric models while specific outcomes in terms of satisfaction with the use of cadaver models were reported clearly only in less than a third of them.
Conclusions: The quality of the materials and methods described in most studies is often characterized by poor detail with regards to the preservation and preparation of the bodies and the satisfaction of use, which might affect training and testing.