For the first time ever, an AI watched a brain surgery live, and helped save a man's sight.
At UCLH's National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, this really happened, and the details are worth sitting with.
What Made It a First
"The first use of artificial intelligence to support a neurosurgeon in real time during live surgery has protected the sight of a man having a brain tumour removed." Not pre-surgery scans -- the live surgical video feed itself, analyzed as the operation happened. The procedure was performed by Professor Hani Marcus, a UCL neurologist and NHNN consultant, alongside neurosurgical resident Danyal Khan.
Why the Margin for Error Was So Small
"The pituitary gland (the size of a marble), blood vessels and nerves controlling vision are tightly packed together, and going a millimetre wrong can make a critical difference and lead to death, blindness or stroke."
What Actually Happened in the Room
"While the surgeon remained in full control, the AI system analysed live camera footage during the procedure, helping identify critical structures such as nerves and blood vessels." The system runs on NVIDIA's Clara IGX platform, built specifically for real-time AI in medical device settings, and was trained on a large collection of annotated video from previous endoscopic pituitary surgeries -- learning to recognize the same structures across many prior operations before ever seeing this one live.
The Backstory
Rhys Hibbert, 48, a customer services manager from Bedfordshire and an active community volunteer, was diagnosed after collapsing during a walk and having a seizure in December 2024. An 11mm tumor on his pituitary gland had been causing a severe hormone imbalance and quietly stealing his peripheral vision -- he'd been tripping repeatedly without understanding why.
The Patient's Own Words
Upon waking, Rhys said, "When I came round… I could see everything in the room clearly." Within a week, he was walking independently, without glasses or sticks. He described it as feeling "like I've got a 360-degree panoramic view of everything around me."
Why He Volunteered
Rhys volunteered for the trial, saying, "If patients are not prepared to join research how can doctors ever learn and how can medicine ever progress?" The AI system, developed at UCL's Hawkes Institute, was funded by NIHR and Google, with additional support from the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at UCLH, the Royal College of Surgeons, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, and Wellcome. As Rhys put it about operating in that part of the brain: "There are no road signs inside our head."