  Recent advancements in technology, particularly in machine learning (ML),
deep learning (DL), and the metaverse, offer great potential for
revolutionizing surgical science. The combination of artificial intelligence
and extended reality (AI-XR) technologies has the potential to create a
surgical metaverse, a virtual environment where surgeries can be planned and
performed. This paper aims to provide insight into the various potential
applications of an AI-XR surgical metaverse and the challenges that must be
addressed to bring its full potential to fruition. It is important for the
community to focus on these challenges to fully realize the potential of the
AI-XR surgical metaverses. Furthermore, to emphasize the need for secure and
robust AI-XR surgical metaverses and to demonstrate the real-world implications
of security threats to the AI-XR surgical metaverses, we present a case study
in which the ``an immersive surgical attack'' on incision point localization is
performed in the context of preoperative planning in a surgical metaverse.
