Implementation of Augmented Reality in Dental Surgery Using HoloLens 2: An In Vitro Study and Accuracy Assessment

Computer-guided dynamic navigation systems have elevated dental implant surgery into a more patient-friendly and efficient procedure. However, commercially available systems use displays as an output for guidance. This implies that surgeons have to take their eyes off the surgery site frequently in order to accurately adjust surgical instruments. The solution for such an issue is to use augmented reality (AR) head-mounted devices to showcase all necessary guiding instructions without any distractions. In this work, the implementation of augmented reality in dental surgery using the HoloLens 2 AR headset for the assessment of accuracy is described. The experiments were performed in vitro with two implementation steps, evaluating calibration and perspective of the virtual dental model alignment accuracies using a newly created marker. The calibration results showed overall accuracy and precision surpassing the 1 mm threshold in distance-related measurements. Dependency on the side on which the marker was observed and the movement of the user's head were considered to be the most influential factors regarding the perspective of the virtual dental model alignment accuracy estimate.

Automated summary

Augmented reality headsets can display real-time guidance instructions in dental surgery, improving patient-friendliness and efficiency.