Atiyeh B, Emsieh S, Hakim C, Chalhoub R. A Narrative Review of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Objective Assessment of Aesthetic Endpoints in Plastic Surgery. Aesthetic Plast Surg. 2023 Mar 31. doi: 10.1007/s00266-023-03328-9. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 37000298.
For todays paper of the week I am submitting a truly fascinating article on AI. As many of us have seen that has been a lot of discussion about AI in the last few months. As surgeons interested in EBM this paper poses some crucial questions. How do we best measure outcomes? of course PROMs are the gold standard right now. These do measure the patients perspective on their outcome and examples like the SCHNOS (from Dr Most) even look at form and function together. The paper looks at multiple studies in the format of a Meta-Analysis. Some key points/ questions:
1. Can AI do a BETTER job of assessing cosmetic outcomes? Because some of the data presented here shows that thousands of data points can be evaluation almost instantaneously is it possible that AI can tell us more about our result than we can see?
2. AI can also calculate a "beauty" score by analyzing millions of data points about noses in media, online, etc. Even if this never replaces the patients opinion — what an amazing research tool this could be to objectively look at outcomes. Especially for patients of different ethnic backgrounds.
3. Perhaps the most exciting part for me - is that fact that AI may be able to suggest the best possible surgical plan. Looking at the patients face from thousands of data points and comparing it to millions of other noses of the same age and ethnicity could help surgeons formulate an ideal surgical plan.