Empowering the future of spinal surgery through digital and intelligent technologies

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been widely applied in spinal surgery, contributing significantly to clinical disease diagnosis, surgical treatment decision-making, prognosis prediction, intraoperative intelligent navigation, surgical rehabilitation, and the advancement of surgical instruments. Nevertheless, current research predominantly focuses on evaluating model performance, often neglecting clear indicators of clinical utility. Moreover, several challenges persist, including low-quality datasets, heterogeneity in research reports, insufficient algorithm transparency, and limited clinical application scenarios. Looking ahead, by enhancing the reliability and clinical efficacy of algorithms from multiple perspectives, AI is expected to enable comprehensive management of spinal surgical diseases throughout the preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative phases.