Emerging research trends and foci of studies on the meniscus: A bibliometric analysis

Abstract

Introduction: Meniscus has always been the focus of sport medicine with thousands of articles published annually. Few study has tried to analyze these papers with bibliometric methods. The purpose of this study is to statistically analyze the output of meniscus research and determine emerging research trends and hot spots.

Methods: Papers related to the meniscus published from 2010 to 2019 were downloaded from the Web of Science Core Collection. Information about annual publications and journal distribution was analyzed by Excel 2016. Co-occurrence analysis of the countries/regions, institutions, authors, and keywords were performed with CiteSpace V, which was also used to perform a co-cited analysis of the references and generate corresponding knowledge maps as well as detect burst keywords.

Results: A total of 10,066 articles regarding meniscus were published between 2010 and 2019. The number of articles annual about meniscus increased from 786 to 1300. Knee Surgery Sports Traumatology Arthroscopy, the United States, University of Pittsburgh, and LaPrade RF were journal, country, institution, and author with the most publications, respectively. Makris EA et al. in 2011 was the most cited articles, with a citation of 198. Osteoarthritis, tear repair, anterior cruciate ligament, and articular cartilage were keywords with occurrence of more than 500. Meniscal extrusion, scaffold, and tissue engineering were terms with most burst strength.

Conclusions: Meniscus-related publications showed a gradual rising trend from 2010 to 2019. Osteoarthritis, tear repairs, and the anterior cruciate ligament are the current research hot spots. Extrusion and scaffolds may be the frontiers of meniscus research in the next few years.

Level of evidence: IV.

Keywords: CiteSpace V; bibliometrics; hot spots; meniscus.