SightMD performs Vision Pro cataract
- SightMD said Dr. Eric Rosenberg became the first surgeon to perform cataract surgery using Apple Vision Pro mixed reality, after an initial case in October 2025. - The company said Rosenberg and his team have since completed hundreds more cases using ScopeXR, a headset-linked platform built around 3D surgical imaging. - The claim lands as other eye-surgery groups begin formal Vision Pro studies in cataract care. (eyeworld.org)
Cataract surgery removes a cloudy natural lens and replaces it with a clear artificial one, usually while the surgeon watches through a microscope. SightMD said Dr. Eric Rosenberg instead used Apple Vision Pro as his main viewing interface during the procedure. (prnewswire.com) SightMD announced April 27 that Rosenberg, a cornea and cataract surgeon at the New York practice, had completed what it called the first cataract surgery performed with Apple Vision Pro mixed reality. The company said the first case was done in October 2025 at a SightMD surgical facility. (prnewswire.com) (sightmd.com) The headset was paired with ScopeXR, a software platform SightMD said Rosenberg co-developed for ophthalmic surgery. The company said the system fed stereoscopic 3D surgical video, overlays, and preoperative diagnostic data into the headset without requiring the surgeon to break sterile technique. (prnewswire.com) SightMD said Rosenberg’s team has now performed hundreds of additional cases with the platform since that first operation. It also said ScopeXR works with existing 3D digital microscopes through HDMI, USB, or wireless NDI connections rather than requiring a rebuilt operating room. (prnewswire.com) The pitch is not only about what the surgeon sees. SightMD said remote surgeons, mentors, and trainees can join a case live, view the same microscope feed and data, and talk back through two-way audio. (prnewswire.com) That arrives as other ophthalmology groups are still in the study phase. EyeWorld reported on April 24 that Sharp HealthCare and Sharp Otay Lakes Ambulatory Surgery Center had begun an Institutional Review Board-approved feasibility study of Apple Vision Pro in cataract surgery using the ClearSurgery app and a ZEISS Artevo 3D digital microscope. (eyeworld.org) So the current record is a company announcement describing completed cases, while a separate California program is collecting prospective clinical data on safety and feasibility. Those are different kinds of evidence, and they sit at different points on the path from demonstration to broader adoption. (prnewswire.com) (eyeworld.org) Rosenberg is not new to trying unusual cataract-surgery visualization tools. In October 2024, SightMD said he had become the second ophthalmologist in the United States and the third in the world to perform “lightless” cataract surgery, another digitally mediated approach. (prweb.com) For now, the headline is narrower than it sounds: a named surgeon, at one practice, says he has already moved a consumer-branded mixed-reality headset from experiment to hundreds of cataract cases. Independent clinical results will determine whether the rest of eye surgery follows. (prnewswire.com) (eyeworld.org)
