Technological Advancements in Augmented, Mixed, and Virtual Reality Technologies for Surgery: A Systematic Review

Recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) have shown significant potential in the medical field, although many applications are still in the research phase. This paper provides a comprehensive review of advancements in augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and virtual reality (VR) for surgical applications from 2019 to 2024 to accelerate the transition of AI from the research to the clinical phase. This paper also provides an overview of proposed databases for further use in extended reality (XR), which includes AR, MR, and VR, as well as a summary of typical research applications involving XR in surgical practices. Additionally, this paper concludes by discussing challenges and proposed solutions for the application of XR in the medical field. Although the areas of focus and specific implementations vary among AR, MR, and VR, current trends in XR focus mainly on reducing workload and minimizing surgical errors through navigation, training, and machine learning-based visualization. Through analyzing these trends, AR and MR have greater advantages for intraoperative surgical functions, whereas VR is limited to preoperative training and surgical preparation. VR faces additional limitations, and its use has been reduced in research since the first applications of XR, which likely suggests the same will happen with further development. Nonetheless, with increased access to technology and the ability to overcome the black box problem, XR's applications in medical fields and surgery will increase to guarantee further accuracy and precision while reducing risk and workload.