Augmented Reality in Spinal Surgery: Highlights From Augmented Reality Lectures at the Emerging Technologies Annual Meetings

Introduction Augmented reality (AR) is an advanced technology and emerging field that has been adopted into spine surgery to enhance care and outcomes. AR superimposes a three-dimensional computer-generated image over the normal anatomy of interest in order to facilitate visualization of deep structures without the ability to directly see them. Objective To summarize the latest literature and highlight AR from the annual “Spinal Navigation, Emerging Technologies and Systems Integration” meeting lectures presented by the Seattle Science Foundation (SSF) on the development and use of augmented reality in spinal surgery. Methods We performed a comprehensive literature review from 2016 to 2020 on PubMed to correlate with lectures given at the annual “Emerging Technologies” conferences. After the exclusion of papers that concerned non-spine surgery specialties, a total of 54 papers concerning AR in spinal applications were found. The articles were then categorized by content and focus. Results The 54 papers were divided into six major focused topics: training, proof of concept, feasibility and usability, clinical evaluation, state of technology, and nonsurgical applications. The greatest number of papers were published during 2020. Each paper discussed varied topics such as patient rehabilitation, proof of concept, workflow, applications in neurological and orthopedic spine surgery, and outcomes data. Conclusions The recent literature and SSF lectures on AR provide a solid base and demonstrate the emergence of an advanced technology that offers a platform for an advantageous technique that is superior, in that it allows the operating surgeon to focus directly on the patient rather than a guidance screen.