Telestration With Augmented Reality in Surgery: A Comprehensive Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Surgical Training
• Augmented Reality Applications

Background:

• Augmented reality (AR) telestration offers a novel approach to surgical teaching.
• Traditional methods and AR-absent telestration serve as benchmarks for comparison.
• AR telestration has the potential to revolutionize surgical education and training paradigms.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically review and meta-analyze the impact of AR telestration on surgical performance metrics.
• To assess improvements in task completion time, error rates, and skill-based scores.
• To evaluate the effectiveness of AR telestration compared to traditional methods.

Main Methods:

• A comprehensive literature search identified six relevant studies.
• Meta-analyses were performed on pooled effect sizes and 95% confidence intervals (CIs).
• The I2 statistic was utilized to quantify heterogeneity across studies.

Main Results:

• Significant improvements were observed in OSATS task-specific scores (+4.99 points) and Global OSATS scores (+1.67 points).
• GOALS Global scores increased by 1.67 points and task-specific GOALS scores by 1.04 points.
• Task completion time decreased significantly (-10.99 points), while error rates showed no significant reduction.

Conclusions:

• AR telestration demonstrates strong evidence for enhancing surgical training outcomes.
• Notable gains in OSATS and GOALS scores, alongside reduced task completion times, highlight its potential.
• Further research is needed to explore learning curves and long-term skill retention.