Recent advancements in technology, particularly in machine learning (ML), deep learning (DL), and the metaverse, offer great potential for revolutionizing surgical science. The combination of artificial intelligence and extended reality (AI-XR) technologies has the potential to create a surgical metaverse, a virtual environment where surgeries can be planned and performed. This paper aims to provide insight into the various potential applications of an AI-XR surgical metaverse and the challenges that must be addressed to bring its full potential to fruition. It is important for the community to focus on these challenges to fully realize the potential of the AI-XR surgical metaverses. Furthermore, to emphasize the need for secure and robust AI-XR surgical metaverses and to demonstrate the real-world implications of security threats to the AI-XR surgical metaverses, we present a case study in which the ``an immersive surgical attack'' on incision point localization is performed in the context of preoperative planning in a surgical metaverse.

翻译：近期技术的进步，尤其是在机器学习（ML）、深度学习（DL）和元宇宙领域，为革新外科学带来了巨大潜力。人工智能与扩展现实（AI-XR）技术的结合，有望构建一个手术元宇宙——一种可规划与执行手术的虚拟环境。本文旨在深入探讨AI-XR手术元宇宙的各种潜在应用，以及为实现其全部潜力必须应对的挑战。为使AI-XR手术元宇宙的潜力得以充分实现，社区需要重点关注这些挑战。此外，为强调构建安全、稳健的AI-XR手术元宇宙的必要性，并展示安全威胁对AI-XR手术元宇宙的现实影响，我们通过一项案例研究，模拟了在手术元宇宙术前规划阶段针对切口点定位发起的“沉浸式手术攻击”。