Navigating the Integration of Artificial Intelligence and Surgery

Abstract

Integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into surgery presents a promising avenue for enhancing diagnostic and therapeutic practices, yet challenges persist in advancing this technology in a surgical setting. Despite strides made in AI-based platforms for medical imaging, robot-assisted laparoscopic surgery, and anesthetic calculations, AI for surgery remains elusive due to limitations in existing optimization approaches and potential ethical issues that arise from utilizing such tools on patients. This literature review investigates the feasibility of utilizing AI to optimize surgery, particularly in aligning 3D images, assisting surgeons with breakthrough techniques, and highlighting certain areas of the body that surgeons have a hard time seeing while operating at the same time. Preliminary research reveals that leveraging an AI agent matches, and sometimes outperforms, current state-of-the-art methods in accuracy and robustness for aligning images in patient screenings and diagnoses. These findings highlight the potential of AI-driven image registration techniques to revolutionize medical imaging, offering insights into addressing long-standing challenges and paving the way for more effective utilization of AI in surgical settings. Additionally, it highlights the importance of continuous ethical considerations in the deployment of AI technologies in patient care, emphasizing the need for ongoing revisions to ethical codes to accommodate the evolving landscape of machine learning systems and technology. This review contributes to understanding the transformative impact of AI in a surgical environment while emphasizing the importance of ethical frameworks in harnessing its full potential.