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While 5G rollouts are happening in select countries across the world, a lot has been spoken about their impact on healthcare, for virtual care and Telehealth. However, the technology is also set to impact surgery, or more specifically, digital surgery. There are several use cases at various stages of maturity for 5G in surgery – not just Remote / Tele-surgery.

In this analysis, we compare the different potential use cases of 5G in surgery, viz. remote or tele-surgery, real-time data access in the operating room (OR), preceptorship and proctorship, and ‘specialized’ training. We also compare the different digital operating room application areas, to rank the ones most likely to be impacted by 5G. Additionally, the study provides a benchmark for 11 prominent countries for their likely adoption of 5G for surgery. A wide variety of ecosystem players such as robotic surgery players, digital OR solution providers (OR Integration OR Management, etc.), virtual / augmented reality based surgical solution providers and surgical navigation solution providers are likely to be impacted by the adoption of 5G, to varying degrees.