Recent Developments and Future Challenges in Medical Mixed Reality

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent advances in medical mixed reality, classifies two decades of research, and identifies future challenges and trends to guide researchers and practitioners in the field.

Contribution

It introduces an unbiased text mining classification of medical MR research and analyzes recent technological and application developments to highlight future research directions.

Findings

Developed a taxonomy for medical MR research based on 1,403 papers.

Identified key areas where technological advancements are most needed.

Analyzed recent trends to suggest future research and application directions.

Abstract

Mixed Reality (MR) is of increasing interest within technology-driven modern medicine but is not yet used in everyday practice. This situation is changing rapidly, however, and this paper explores the emergence of MR technology and the importance of its utility within medical applications. A classification of medical MR has been obtained by applying an unbiased text mining method to a database of 1,403 relevant research papers published over the last two decades. The classification results reveal a taxonomy for the development of medical MR research during this period as well as suggesting future trends. We then use the classification to analyse the technology and applications developed in the last five years. Our objective is to aid researchers to focus on the areas where technology advancements in medical MR are most needed, as well as providing medical practitioners with a useful source of reference.