Objectives: To assess the non-inferiority of low-cost homemade agar-based phantoms compared to commercial models regarding students' self-reported confidence and performance in basic ultrasound-guided procedures. Materials and methods: This randomized controlled study was conducted at a single university in June 2025, during interventional radiology (IR) resident training sessions.Participants were all consecutive students randomized 2:1 to either agar-based or commercial phantoms.Phantoms were designed to simulate deep collection puncture and vascular access.Participants completed technical assessments and questionnaires before and after the training.Results: Twenty-three residents (8 male 35%; median residency semester IQR, 2 2-4)were included and randomized to the agar-based group (n=15) or the commercial phantom group (n=8).Students increased their self-reported confidence in basic procedures from 3.7 2.4 to 6.2 1.7 out of 10 (+ 2.5 points; p < 0.01), with non-inferiority of agar-based models confirmed (p = 0.04).Procedure time improved by 135 174 seconds (p < 0.01), with noninferiority demonstrated for deep collection puncture test (p = 0.04).The number of punctures decreased by 0.6 0.7 (p = 0.04) for this test, again with non-inferiority confirmed for agar phantoms (p = 0.02).Overall interest in IR was high (7.1 2.2 /10), particularly for Level-1 procedures (8.6 1.3/10).Students trained with agar models expressed high satisfaction, rating their support for using such models in educational settings at 8.9 1.3/10. Conclusion:Low-cost homemade agar-based phantoms appeared to be non-inferior to commercial models for confidence improvement, but not for all performance outcomes in this small sample.However, they significantly improved trainees' performance during ultrasoundguided intervention training.
Gargiulo et al. (Fri,) studied this question.
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