The global state of research in nonsurgical treatment of knee osteoarthritis: a bibliometric and visualized study

Abstract

Background: Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common joint disorder among elderly individuals. Nonsurgical treatment plays an important role in treating knee OA. The aim of the present study was to investigate the trends and research status about nonsurgical treatment of knee OA.

Methods: Publications about the nonsurgical treatment of knee OA from 1994 to 2018 were searched from the Web of Science (WoS) database. The data were analyzed by using bibliometric methodology. The software VOSviewer was used for bibliographic coupling, coauthorship, cocitation, co-occurrence analysis and to investigate the publication trends in nonsurgical treatment of knee OA.

Results: In total, 8512 articles were included. The number of publications increased annually worldwide. The United States has made the largest contribution to this field, with the most publications, citations and the highest H-index. The most contributive institutions were Harvard University, the University of California system and Assistance Publique Hopitaux Paris (APHP). The journal Osteoarthritis and Cartilage published the most relative articles. Studies could be classified into five clusters: articular cartilage study, biomechanics study, physiotherapy study, oral pharmacologic study and intra-articular injection study. Articular cartilage and physiotherapy were predicted as the next hot topics in this field.

Conclusions: There will be an increasing number of publications on the nonsurgical treatment of knee OA based on current global trends. The United States made the largest contribution to this field. More focus will be placed on cartilage-related and physiotherapy research, which may be the next popular topics in the nonsurgical treatment of knee OA.

Keywords: Bibliometrics; Nonsurgical; Osteoarthritis; Treatment; Visualized study.

Fig. 1

a The total number and RRIs of publications related to nonsurgical treatment of knee OA study. The blue bars mean the number of publications each year, and the black curve means the RRIs. b Distribution of nonsurgical treatment of knee OA research in world map. c The top 20 countries of total number of publications. d Model fitting curves of trends in global publications

Fig. 2

a The top 20 countries of total citations. b The top 20 countries of the average citations for each article. c The top 20 countries of the H-index of publications

Fig. 3

a The top 20 journals with most publications related to the nonsurgical treatment of knee OA. b The 20 main research orientations and the number of publications in each orientation. c The top 20 institutions of high-impact and the number of their publications. d The top 20 authors with most publications in this field

Fig. 4

Bibliographic coupling analysis of worldwide research on nonsurgical treatment of knee OA. a Mapping on the 315 identified journals on nonsurgical treatment of knee OA. b Mapping on 815 institutions on nonsurgical treatment of knee OA. c Mapping on the 69 countries in this field. The line between two icons in the figure indicates that two journals/institutions/countries had created a similarity relationship

Fig. 5

Coauthorship and cocitation analysis of global research about nonsurgical treatment of knee OA. a Mapping on the 1447 identified authors by coauthorship analysis on nonsurgical treatment of knee OA. b Mapping on the 816 identified institutions by coauthorship analysis on nonsurgical treatment of knee OA. c Mapping on the 69 identified countries by coauthorship analysis on nonsurgical treatment of knee OA. The size of the icons indicates the coauthorship frequency. The line between two icons in the figure indicates that two authors/institutions/countries had established collaboration. d Mapping on the 1470 identified journals by cocitation analysis. The size of the icons indicates the citation frequency. A line between two icons indicates that both were cited in one journal. e Mapping on the 1730 identified references by cocitation analysis. The size of the icons indicates the citation frequency. A line between two icons indicates that both were cited in one paper

Fig. 6

Co-occurrence analysis of nonsurgical treatment of knee OA. a Mapping on keywords in the study on nonsurgical treatment of knee OA; the size of the icons indicates the frequency, and the keywords are classified into five clusters: articular cartilage study (red color), biomechanics study (blue color), physiotherapy study (green color), oral pharmacologic study (yellow color) and intra-articular injection study (purple color). b Distribution of keywords according to their time of appearance; keywords in purple appeared earlier than those in green, and keywords in yellow appeared later