review · BioMedical Engineering OnLine
Extended reality technologies, including virtual reality and augmented reality, are increasingly investigated across diverse biomedical engineering domains. A scoping review of seventy-seven publications spanning from 2009 to 2023 highlights four primary areas of application: medical education, surgical procedures, patient rehabilitation, and supporting wireless communications such as millimeter-wave and multiple-input multiple-output systems. Among these domains, medical training and curriculum education represent the largest share of examined literature. Surgical applications constitute the second most prevalent category, covering neurosurgery, spine surgery, oral and maxillofacial procedures, and augmented reality-enhanced human-robot interaction. Therapeutic uses encompass rehabilitation strategies such as stroke recovery and cancer care. In addition, research evaluates technical wireless infrastructure to support extended reality systems. Overall, the literature reflects a primary emphasis on training alongside clinical interventions and therapy.
Virtual and augmented reality tools offer new ways to train healthcare professionals, execute complex operations, and deliver patient therapy. Mapping fourteen years of research helps educators, healthcare providers, and engineers identify where extended reality technologies are mature, such as in clinical education and surgical guidance, and where technical connectivity remains an active development focus.
The review identifies target applications in medical education platforms, surgical guidance tools, robotic surgical interfaces, and therapeutic rehabilitation systems. Intended users include medical schools, surgeons, clinical therapists, and biomedical hardware developers. Because this evidence is drawn from a scoping review covering broad literature, specific readiness levels vary across subfields, with educational and training applications being the most extensively documented, while communication systems such as millimeter-wave integration represent earlier technical exploration.
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BACKGROUND: In the future, extended reality technology will be widely used. People will be led to utilize virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies in their daily lives, hobbies, numerous types of entertainment, and employment. Medical augmented reality has evolved with applications ranging from medical education to picture-guided surgery. Moreover, a bulk of research is focused on clinical applications, with the majority of research devoted to surgery or intervention, followed by rehabilitation and treatment applications. Numerous studies have also looked into the use of augmented reality in medical education and training. METHODS: Using the databases Semantic Scholar, Web of Science, Scopus, IEEE Xplore, and ScienceDirect, a scoping review was conducted in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) criteria. To find other articles, a manual search was also carried out in Google Scholar. This study presents studies carried out over the previous 14 years (from 2009 to 2023) in detail. We classify this area of study into the following categories: (1) AR and VR in surgery, which is presented in the following subsections: subsection A: MR in neurosurgery; subsection B: spine surgery; subsection C: oral and maxillofacial surgery; and subsection D: AR-enhanced human-robot interaction; (2) AR and VR in medical education presented in the following subsections; subsection A: medical training; subsection B: schools and curriculum; subsection C: XR in Biomedicine; (3) AR and VR for rehabilitation presented in the following subsections; subsection A: stroke rehabilitation during COVID-19; subsection B: cancer and VR, and (4) Millimeter-wave and MIMO systems for AR and VR. RESULTS: In total, 77 publications were selected based on the inclusion criteria. Four distinct AR and/or VR applications groups could be differentiated: AR and VR in surgery (N = 21), VR and AR in Medical Education (N = 30), AR and VR for Rehabilitation (N = 15), and Millimeter-Wave and MIMO Systems for AR and VR (N = 7), where N is number of cited studies. We found that the majority of research is devoted to medical training and education, with surgical or interventional applications coming in second. The research is mostly focused on rehabilitation, therapy, and clinical applications. Moreover, the application of XR in MIMO has been the subject of numerous research. CONCLUSION: Examples of these diverse fields of applications are displayed in this review as follows: (1) augmented reality and virtual reality in surgery; (2) augmented reality and virtual reality in medical education; (3) augmented reality and virtual reality for rehabilitation; and (4) millimeter-wave and MIMO systems for augmented reality and virtual reality.
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DOI: 10.1186/s12938-023-01138-3
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