Three orthopedic spine and neurosurgeons shared their insight on the future of artificial intelligence in spine.
Question: How do you see artificial intelligence impacting spine surgery?
Khoi Than, Md. Duke Spine Center (Durham, N.C.): We are seeing some great work being done in the realm of AI and spine surgery. I think AI has immense promise as an adjunct to surgical decision making. In other words, for cases where the best surgical plan is not clear, a surgeon could use AI to develop one based on a patient's chief complaint, demographics, co-morbidities, physical examination and imaging findings. While the applications of AI are nearly endless, this is one I'm particularly excited about.
Stephen Hochschuler, MD. Texas Back Institute (Plano): What's becoming very fascinating now as you marry AI to robotics, is the FDA is going to have to put a whole new silo in to deal with AI. It's a whole new skillset they're going to need. Either they're going to bring in people who readily understand it and not lengthen the time to approval or they're going to make it very difficult to achieve integration of AI with robots.
Robert Gewirtz, MD. Mount Carmel Central Ohio Neurological Surgeons (Westerville): I think AI will be part of the reading process for imaging studies in the future. However, spine surgeons will still need to be able to review and interpret their own studies indefinitely. AI will also be a powerful research tool. I can see a day when an AI program will assign a probability score for each patient, utilizing their imaging studies and clinical factors, to help determine optimal therapy for our patients. The dark side will be insurance companies using AI to deny coverage for treatment or surgery based on a similar score.