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Updated: Sep 2, 2025
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Published on: June 10, 2021
Eye Tracking Use in Surgical Research: A Systematic Review
Amalia M Gil1, Sharon Birdi2, Teruko Kishibe3
1International Centre for Surgical Safety, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St. Michael's Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Institute of Biomedical Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Introduction:
Eye tracking (ET) is a popular tool to study what factors affect the visual behaviour of surgical team members. To our knowledge, there have been no reviews to date that evaluate the broad use of ET in surgical research. This review aims to identify and assess the quality of this evidence, to synthesize how ET can be used to inform surgical practice, and to provide recommendations to improve future ET surgical studies.
Methods:
In line with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines, a systematic literature review was conducted. An electronic search was performed in MEDLINE, Cochrane Central, Embase, and Web of Science databases up to September 2020. Included studies used ET to measure the visual behaviour of members of the surgical team during surgery or surgical tasks. The included studies were assessed by two independent reviewers.
Results:
A total of 7614 studies were identified, and 111 were included for data extraction. Eleven applications were identified; the four most common were skill assessment (41%), visual attention assessment (22%), workload measurement (17%), and skills training (10%). A summary was provided of the various ways ET could be used to inform surgical practice, and three areas were identified for the improvement of future ET studies in surgery.
Conclusions:
This review provided a comprehensive summary of the various applications of ET in surgery and how ET could be used to inform surgical practice, including how to use ET to improve surgical education. The information provided in this review can also aid in the design and conduct of future ET surgical studies.
