Artificial intelligence in pediatric surgery

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly changing the landscape of medicine and is already being utilized in conjunction with medical diagnostics and imaging analysis. We hereby explore AI applications in surgery and examine its relevance to pediatric surgery, covering its evolution, current state, and promising future. The various fields of AI are explored including machine learning and applications to predictive analytics and decision support in surgery, computer vision and image analysis in preoperative planning, image segmentation, surgical navigation, and finally, natural language processing assist in expediting clinical documentation, identification of clinical indications, quality improvement, outcome research, and other types of automated data extraction. The purpose of this review is to familiarize the pediatric surgical community with the rise of AI and highlight the ongoing advancements and challenges in its adoption, including data privacy, regulatory considerations, and the imperative for interdisciplinary collaboration. We hope this review serves as a comprehensive guide to AI's transformative influence on surgery, demonstrating its potential to enhance pediatric surgical patient outcomes, improve precision, and usher in a new era of surgical excellence.