In a landmark moment for neurosurgery, a team at one of Britain’s most prestigious hospitals has successfully removed a brain tumour using artificial intelligence in a real-time, live operation — saving the sight of a 48-year-old man in the process.
Rhys Hibbert, a customer service manager from Bedfordshire, underwent the pioneering procedure in May at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery (NHNN), part of University College London hospitals NHS foundation trust. Details were kept under wraps for three months while he recovered. He has now returned to work, and within a week of surgery was walking independently without the glasses or sticks he had previously relied upon.
The AI system analysed live camera footage from the operating theatre throughout the delicate procedure, identifying critical structures — nerves, blood vessels and tissue — that surgeons needed to avoid around an 11mm (0.4in) tumour on Hibbert’s pituitary gland. The surgical team remained in complete control at all times; the technology served as an extra set of expert eyes, colour-coding vital anatomy to ensure nothing was missed.
A millimetre can mean the difference between sight and blindness
The pituitary gland sits in a tightly packed region of the brain, surrounded by the optic nerves and blood vessels that govern vision. According to those involved, the margin for error is vanishingly small.
“Going a millimetre wrong can make a critical difference,” health officials said. The consequences of such an error can include blindness, stroke or death — making this one of the most high-stakes environments in all of medicine.
It is precisely this challenge that makes the breakthrough so significant. The AI system was trained on hundreds of surgical videos, exposing it to a breadth of operative scenarios that would take a human surgeon many years to encounter.
How the technology works
Dr Sophia Bano, associate professor in robotics and AI at UCL, served as the technical lead for the system. She explained that the AI is designed to “recognise critical anatomy, surgical instruments and tissue interactions in real time, supporting the surgeon during highly delicate procedures.”
The hospital had previously deployed the technology as a research tool, but the operation on Hibbert marked the first time it had been used on a living patient. The system essentially acts as a co-pilot — flagging dangers the human eye might miss during a procedure where the stakes could not be higher.
A patient “blown away” by his own recovery
Hibbert’s symptoms had worsened steadily since his diagnosis in 2024. He suffered severe hormone imbalance and progressive vision problems — a deterioration that, without intervention, would have left him completely blind.
“When I came round … I could see everything in the room clearly,” he said. Within days, the transformation was remarkable. “It feels like I’ve got a 360-degree panoramic view of everything around me,” he added. “The NHNN was founded in 1859 and was the world’s first dedicated neurosurgical hospital. So to me, it seems very fitting that the same hospital should also be the world’s first to carry out an AI-assisted neurosurgery.”
A glimpse of medicine’s future
The operation was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) as part of a clinical trial. Prof Mike Lewis, the organisation’s scientific director for innovation, said the “pioneering surgery” highlighted the potential of advanced AI to support surgeons and improve patient care.
There is, of course, a long road between a single successful operation and routine clinical adoption. Regulators will want to see replicated results across many patients and tumour types. Surgeons will need extensive training to integrate the technology seamlessly into their workflow. And questions will persist about liability, oversight, and the precise boundary between human judgment and machine guidance.
But for one patient, on one day in May, the future arrived early — and the view, quite literally, is clearer than ever.
Why it Matters
This operation represents far more than a technical curiosity. It signals the dawn of a new era in which AI moves from the research bench into the operating theatre, augmenting the instincts of even the most highly trained surgeons. For the hundreds of thousands of patients worldwide who undergo delicate neurosurgery each year, that could mean fewer complications, faster recoveries, and lives transformed. If the results are replicated and the technology scales, the London theatre where Hibbert’s sight was saved will be remembered as the place modern medicine changed course.
