Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Mar 11:9:864792.
doi: 10.3389/fsurg.2022.864792. eCollection 2022.

Augmented Reality in Neurosurgery, State of Art and Future Projections. A Systematic Review

Delia Cannizzaro  1   2 , Ismail Zaed  1   2 , Adrian Safa  2 , Alice J M Jelmoni  2 , Antonio Composto  2 , Andrea Bisoglio  2 , Kyra Schmeizer  2 , Ana C Becker  2 , Andrea Pizzi  2 , Andrea Cardia  1   2 , Franco Servadei  1   2
Affiliations

Augmented Reality in Neurosurgery, State of Art and Future Projections. A Systematic Review

Delia Cannizzaro et al. Front Surg. .

Abstract

Background: The 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.

Methods: A 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.

Results: A 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.

Conclusions: The 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.

Keywords: augmented reality; cranial surgery; education; neurosurgery; spine surgery; training.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Prisma flow diagram of the literature search.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Diagram representing the number of publications per year.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Representation of the number of publication per country.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Diagram representing the number of publications per country.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Diagram representing the number of publications per topic.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Diagram showing the number of publications per topic per country.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Diagram representing the topics trends per year.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

References

    1. Bernardo A. Virtual reality and simulation in neurosurgical training. World Neurosurg. (2017) 106:1015–29. 10.1016/j.wneu.2017.06.140 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Davids J, Manivannan S, Darzi A, Giannarou S, Ashrafian H, Marcus HJ. Simulation for skills training in neurosurgery: a systematic review, meta-analysis, and analysis of progressive scholarly acceptance. Neurosurg Rev. (2021) 44:1853–67. 10.1007/s10143-020-01378-0 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Yoon JW, Chen RE, Kim EJ, Akinduro OO, Kerezoudis P, Han PK, et al. . Augmented reality for the surgeon: systematic review. Int J Med Robot. (2018) 14:e1914. 10.1002/rcs.1914 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Rahman R, Wood ME, Qian L, Price CL, Johnson AA, Osgood GM. Head-mounted display use in surgery: a systematic review. Surg Innov. (2020) 27:88–100. 10.1177/1553350619871787 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Carl B, Bopp M, Saß B, Pojskic M, Gjorgjevski M, Voellger B, et al. . Reliable navigation registration in cranial and spine surgery based on intraoperative computed tomography. Neurosurg Focus. (2019) 47:E11. 10.3171/2019.8.FOCUS19621 - DOI - PubMed

Publication types