Advancing Surgical Practice With Mixed Reality: Current Innovations and Future Prospects

ABSTRACT Mixed reality is an immersive visualization technology based on simultaneous localization and mapping systems and standalone head‐mounted displays. It enables seamless integration and dynamic interaction among users, virtual elements, and the physical environment. Although numerous clinical studies and in vitro experiments have confirmed the value of mixed reality in surgical practice, the hierarchy of evidence remains limited. This review draws on published English‐language literature to summarize its technical foundations, clinical applications, current innovations, and existing challenges. Specifically, the primary procedures of mixed reality‐assisted surgery consist of three‐dimensional reconstruction, holographic visualization, and spatial registration. Its clinical applications span preoperative planning, intraoperative navigation, surgical training, and postoperative rehabilitation. However, current limitations include insufficient computational and display capabilities of head‐mounted displays, inadequate accuracy in spatial registration, high costs, workflow complexity, and unresolved ethical concerns. Therefore, we recommend increased resource allocation for technological innovations, multicenter randomized controlled clinical trials, and detailed risk‐benefit assessments, aiming to establish and validate standardized clinical workflows. As the first comprehensive narrative review to compare the clinical applicability of mixed reality across all surgical specialties, this article outlines future research directions by analyzing representative clinical studies and offers a reliable report on current progress.