Abstract
BackgroundThe use of augmented reality (AR) is growing in medical education, in particular, in radiology and surgery. AR has the potential to become a strategic component of neurosurgical training courses. In fact, over the years, there has been a progressive increase in the application of AR in the various fields of neurosurgery. In this study, the authors aim to define the diffusion of these augmented reality systems in recent years. This study describes future trends in augmented reality for neurosurgeons.MethodsA systematic review of the literature was conducted to identify research published from December 1st, 2011 to November 30th, 2021. Electronic databases (PubMed, PubMed Central, and Scopus) were screened. The methodological quality of studies and extracted data were assessed for “augmented reality” and “neurosurgery”. The data analysis focused on the geographical distribution, temporal evolution, and topic of augmented reality in neurosurgery.ResultsA total of 198 studies have been included. The number of augmented reality applications in the neurosurgical field has increased during the last 10 years. The main topics on which it is mostly applied are spine surgery, neuronavigation, and education. The geographical distribution shows extensive use of augmented reality in the USA, Germany, China, and Canada. North America is the continent that uses augmented reality the most in the training and education of medical students, residents, and surgeons, besides giving the greatest research contribution in spine surgery, brain oncology, and surgical planning. AR is also extensively used in Asia for intraoperative navigation. Nevertheless, augmented reality is still far from reaching Africa and other countries with limited facilities, as no publications could be retrieved from our search.ConclusionsThe use of AR is significantly increased in the last 10 years. Nowadays it is mainly used in spine surgery and for neurosurgical education, especially in North America, Europe and China. A continuous growth, also in other aspects of the specialty, is expected in the next future.
Highlights
Augmented reality (AR) is a general terminology used to define a set of different technologies, all aiming to project virtual content into the real environment [1]
A systemic broad search was done on PubMed using the search terms “augmented reality” and “neurosurgery” for the last 10 years, from December 1st, 2011 to December 31st, 2021
In order to retrieve all the possible articles of interest, several keywords have been included: “augmented reality,” “neurosurgery.” These were combined with Boolean characters “AND” as well as “OR.” References from included articles were manually checked for proper additional studies
Summary
Augmented reality (AR) is a general terminology used to define a set of different technologies, all aiming to project virtual content into the real environment [1]. The injection of multimodal preoperative and/or intraoperative images into the AR environment (such as MRI, CT, tractography, angiography, or ultrasound) enriches the surgeon’s ability to simultaneously process data of different categories, of crucial importance This interactive surgical manipulation and anatomy visualization, integrated with haptic feedback, can significantly strengthen the resident’s procedural memory and confidence during the procedure, reducing the operation time [1, 2]. These motivations clearly explain why AR has such great potential to become an essential part of neurosurgical training courses, starting from the earliest stages of a medical student’s education to the training of an experienced neurosurgeon. This study describes future trends in augmented reality for neurosurgeons
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