Metaverse: a new reality in surgery. Review

The metaverse is a relatively new concept in technological advancement. It is a three-dimensional immersive environment including real and virtual world elements, in which various digital agents, more precisely, avatars, interact with each other and various activities (educational, cultural, and financial) can be carried out. It is an emerging controversial concept without precise definition and will likely continue to evolve as technology improves. Works of literature from 2020 to 2023, posted in the PubMed and Web of Science databases, were extracted using the following keywords: “metaverse”, “education”, “digital therapy”, “interdisciplinary consultation”, “medical Internet of things”, “virtual reality”, “superimposed reality”, “extended reality”, “mixed reality”, “lifelogging”, “mirror world”, “digital twins”, and “surgery”. In the PubMed search using the original terms, no publications were extracted in 2020, 9 in 2021, 161 in 2022, and 246 in 2023. In the healthcare context, metaverse technology refers to the use of virtual reality and interactive and other immersive technologies, such as augmented reality, to create simulated environments intended for training, education, and clinical applications. Various aspects of medicine such as digital therapeutics, multidisciplinary team discussions, medical Internet of things, surgical simulations, conferences and meetings, research programs, etc., are being explored. Depending on the requirements, the metaverse provides a versatile platform that can be modeled accordingly, providing a flexible tool for medical development. In this review, we discussed in detail the possible applications of the metaverse in surgery. All scoping rubrics are based on the sparse evidence in the scientific literature and are adequately evaluated to provide compelling evidence on the utility of the metaverse in the future of medicine.