UC Davis Study Backs AR Glasses for Vet Head/Neck Surgery

Researchers at UC Davis have shown in a proof-of-concept study that augmented reality (AR) glasses can meaningfully improve spatial accuracy for simulated veterinary head and neck surgical tasks without slowing surgeons down. Published in the American Journal of Veterinary Research on 24 June 2026 and reported by DVM360 on 24 August 2026, the study tested AR-guided visualisation on veterinarians performing precision tasks against a holographic 3D dog head model.

The study, led by senior author Stephanie Goldschmidt (UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine), recruited 22 licensed veterinarians spanning dentistry and oral surgery, neurology/neurosurgery, and orthopaedic surgery. Participants used commercially available AR glasses paired with a custom application to complete tasks on a holographic 3D model of a dog’s head bearing an oral tumour, including tracing tumour margins either from memory or with the outline displayed live in their AR field of view. When targets were directly visible in the surgical field, distance error dropped from an average of 3.42mm to 2.73mm, and area tracing accuracy jumped from approximately 63% coverage to approximately 84%.

Direct-view tasks were completed faster rather than slower, with time mostly unchanged for area tracing. Usability was rated at 3.55 out of 5, with hand-tracking lag emerging after more than 90 minutes of use. Veterinarians with more than two years of experience showed lower error rates than less experienced participants, while performance did not differ significantly by specialty. The team stressed the study’s proof-of-concept limits, including the use of a holographic simulation rather than physical tissue, small sample size and single-institution scope, and identified live clinical settings as the next validation step.

The commercial signal is an early-stage but strategically significant convergence between AR consumer hardware and veterinary surgical workflow, with clear translation potential from human medicine. Expect human medical AR players Augmedics, Medivis, Novarad and Immertec to consider veterinary adjacencies, and veterinary surgical incumbents Karl Storz Vet and Medtronic to monitor closely as AR clinical validation progresses toward live patient trials.

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