A bibliometric analysis of obstructive sleep apnea and anesthesia

Abstract

To conduct a bibliographic analysis of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) which has reached epidemic proportions and is a frequent, unknown, and important cause of perioperative morbidity and mortality, by examining the internationally most cited articles. For OSA, the most cited articles in the field of anesthesiology and reanimation, appropriate access terms were compiled and combined, and related publications were searched using the Thompson Reuters Web of Science Citation Indexing search engine. A total of 79 journal publications were found on OSA and anesthesia, with an average of 14.86 citations per article. The most cited publication was the "Society for Ambulatory Anesthesia Consensus Statement on Preoperative Selection of Adult Patients with Obstructive Sleep Apnea Scheduled for Ambulatory Surgery" published in the journal Anesthesia and Analgesia and was conducted by Joshi et al. It was found that 38 of the 79 studies reached as a result of the search were articles, and the average number of citations was 21.13. The Hirsch index of these articles, which were cited 803 times in total, was 15. A total of 31 articles (81.57%) were cited at least once, while the remaining 7 articles (18.43%) were not cited at all. The majority of the articles obtained are from the research fields of anesthesiology (n = 20; 52.63%), followed by otorhinolaryngology (n = 5; 13.15%), pediatrics (n = 5; 13.15%), respiratory system (n = 5; 13.15%), internal medicine (n = 4; 10.52%), and the rest were in various fields. Publications on "Obstructive Sleep Apnea" and "Anesthesia" have increased rapidly in the last decade. Anesthesia management and airway safety, patient management, including pain control in the postoperative period, and noninvasive mechanical ventilation treatment methods, such as continuous positive airway pressure, are hot topics.

Figure 1.

Graphics of total publications by years between 1987 and 2021. The red dotted line indicates the moving median. The red line indicates the trend line.

Figure 2.

Mapping of countries in international collaboration with at least 1 publication on “Obstructive Sleep Apnea” and “Anesthesia.”

Figure 3.

Graphics of citations by year between 1996 and 2021. The line indicates the number of citations.

Figure 4.

Citation visualization map among authors with at least 1 publication on “Obstructive Sleep Apnea” and “Anesthesia.” The lines connecting the authors are indicative of citations. Relatively more cited authors are represented by larger circle size or font size.

Figure 5.

Keyword visualization map of articles on “Obstructive Sleep Apnea” and “Anesthesia” that are mentioned at least once. Converging lines are indicative of occurrence relationships in articles. Keywords represented by larger circle size or font size appeared relatively more in articles.