A proof-of-concept study published in the American Journal of Veterinary Research (AJVR) suggests augmented reality (AR) eyeglasses could improve precision in complex canine head and neck surgeries. Researchers tested holographic visualization overlaid directly onto a surgical field and found it may enhance spatial accuracy without affecting procedure speed. A—Photograph of a cadaver dog head with a clay mold fitted around its right maxillary incisors to model an oral tumor. B—The 3-D reconstruction scan was created by the Polycam app after taking 124 images in light detection and ranging mode. The ruler tool shows that the mouth gag is 4 cm long, confirming the 3-D object is a 1:1 scale replica. C—A person’s palm is overlaid with vector-line representations generated from Python code. This is what the user will see while wearing the glasses. D—A photoshop illustration of what a participant sees while operating this program. There are vector lines overlayed on their fingers as part of the hand tracking, and a dog head with user-drawn annotations is positioned directly in front of the participant. These objects have a yellow tint to indicate they are virtual entities. Citation: American Journal of Veterinary Research 2026; 10.2460/ajvr.25.12.0432 The study involved 22 veterinarians from the University of California, Davis, and represents an early step toward applying AR in veterinary oncology and other intricate procedures. “Augmented reality technology has the potential to enhance surgical precision by overlaying 3D diagnostic imaging and biologic information directly onto the animal patient,” says lead author Stephanie Goldschmidt, BVM&S, DAVDC, DEVD, in a release by the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA).
