Orthopedic field awaits impact of artificial intelligence

Since the 1950s when the term artificial intelligence was coined, its application and use has increased through rapid technological advances and has found their way into the health care sector, including orthopedics. A study published in 2018 showed the amount of orthopedic literature on machine learning, which is one type of artificial intelligence (AI), had an approximate tenfold increase since 2010, with the most frequently applied machine learning algorithms found in spine pathology, osteoarthritis detection and prediction, and imaging of bone and cartilage. "I think there has definitely been an increase in our understanding but also our attraction or fascination with how [artificial intelligence] may shift care in orthopedics going forward," Atul F. Kamath, MD, director of the Hip Preservation Center, staff in the Orthopedic and Rheumatologic Institute and professor of orthopedic surgery at Cleveland Clinic, told Orthopedics Today. "I think qualitatively, whether you are a lay person or someone in the medical field, you know artificial intelligence is integrated into multiple facets of daily life with autonomous cars and Siri, but also has merged into the medical world with projects like IBM Watson and Google platforms." An increase in larger datasets along with the convergence of cloud-based computing and graphical processing units (GPUs) with other areas of technology have allowed AI to become what it is today, according to Joseph H. Schwab, MD, chief of spine surgery and associate professor of orthopedic surgery at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.