The Transformative Role of Artificial Intelligence in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery: Challenges and Opportunities

The study explores the transformative impact of AI in plastic and reconstructive surgery, highlighting its potential to enhance preoperative planning, intraoperative precision, and postoperative monitoring. AI technologies improve risk assessment, surgical simulation, and complication detection, while AI-assisted robotics advance microsurgery capabilities. Despite these advancements, challenges such as data privacy, algorithmic bias, and regulatory issues must be addressed. Future directions include integrating AI with extended reality and regenerative medicine. The study concludes that while AI offers significant opportunities to improve surgical outcomes, ethical considerations and the human aspects of care must be preserved, urging plastic surgeons to engage with AI development to align with the specialty's core values.