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. 2022 Oct 31;10(10):23259671221132564.
doi: 10.1177/23259671221132564. eCollection 2022 Oct.

Trends in Anterior Cruciate Ligament Repair: A Bibliometric and Visualized Analysis

Jinfei Li  1 , Benjamin Rothrauff  2 , Shuyi Chen  1 , Shuying Zhao  1 , Zhaoxi Wu  1 , Qi Chen  1 , Jinshen He  1
Affiliations

Trends in Anterior Cruciate Ligament Repair: A Bibliometric and Visualized Analysis

Jinfei Li et al. Orthop J Sports Med. .

Abstract

Background: Bibliometrics is a methodology that measures the scientific output of an author, institution, or country. Visualized analysis is the transformation of data into visible form by software, highlighting important features, including commonalities and anomalies, allowing users to easily and quickly perceive significant aspects of their data.

Purpose: To conduct a bibliometric analysis of the literature on anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) repair, with visualization of trends, in order to identify the areas of interest and the primary researchers involved in ACL repair.

Study design: Cross-sectional study.

Methods: The PubMed database was queried on April 14, 2022, for publications that reported on ACL repair from 1960 onward. The initial search resulted in 1392 publications. Filter settings were applied to remove publications with weak correlation, such as those on meniscal repair and ACL reconstruction. Publication information, citations, authors, commonly used terms, and affiliated institutions and countries were analyzed by VOSviewer and Python.

Results: A total of 553 articles were included for analysis. Three techniques were visualized: bridge-enhanced ACL repair, internal brace, and dynamic intraligamentary stabilization. The most published authors were Martha Murray (51 articles), Gregory Difelice (35 articles), and Braden Fleming (31 articles). The most cited article was "Collagen-Platelet Rich Plasma Hydrogel Enhances Primary Repair of the Porcine Anterior Cruciate Ligament" by Murray et al. The journals with the most publications on ACL repair were the American Journal of Sports Medicine (n = 49); Knee Surgery, Sports Traumatology, Arthroscopy (n = 49); and Arthroscopy (n = 48). The top 3 institutions by publication number were the Hospital for Special Surgery (n = 51), Boston Children's Hospital (n = 49), and Brown University (n = 31), with the most publications coming from the United States (n = 242), Germany (n = 83), and the United Kingdom (n = 47).

Conclusion: The results demonstrate that the research on ACL repair comes from a small number of authors and corresponding institutions; the top sports medicine journals and the developed countries have an interest in this topic.

Keywords: ACL; anterior cruciate ligament; bibliometrics; bridge-enhanced ACL repair; dynamic intraligamentary stabilization; internal brace.

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Conflict of interest statement

One or more of the authors has declared the following potential conflict of interest or source of funding: Support for this study was received from the Education Reform Foundation of Central South University (grant 2021JY188), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant 81802208), and the Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province (grant 2021JJ40922). AOSSM checks author disclosures against the Open Payments Database (OPD). AOSSM has not conducted an independent investigation on the OPD and disclaims any liability or responsibility relating thereto.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Yearly trend in publications on anterior cruciate ligament repair, 1960-2020, by articles per year and articles per 3-year average.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Distribution of commonly used terms according to time of appearance, 2000-2020. Blue indicates the terms that appeared earlier, whereas yellow reflects a later occurrence.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
The visualization of authors involved in anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) repair publications was roughly divided into 3 clusters. The left cluster principally involved work on bridge-enhanced ACL repair, the central cluster involved dynamic intraligamentary stabilization, and the right cluster was related to the study of anchors and suture tape augmentation (internal bracing).
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Networks of authors publishing on anterior cruciate ligament repair surgery. Shown are coauthors who published with (A) Martha Murray, (B) Gregory Difelice, (C) Savio Woo, and (D) Stefan Eggli.
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
Number of articles on anterior cruciate ligament repair published by 19 authors. Affiliated coauthors are depicted by the same bar color.
Figure 6.
Figure 6.
Distribution by country of publications on anterior cruciate ligament repair.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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