From past to digital time: Bibliometric perspective of worldwide research productivity on robotic and computer-assisted arthroplasty

Abstract

Objective: The number of citations can be used as an impact marker of research work. This study aimed to determine and characterize the worldwide research productivity on robotic and computer-assisted arthroplasty.

Methods: All accessible publications from 1992 to 2023 on robotic and computer-assisted arthroplasty from Web of Science Core Collection (WOSCC) database were recorded in August 2024. The following aspects were retrieved: cited times, name of author, keywords, institution, country, year of publication, journal, title, topic, impact factor, and H-index. VOSviewer software and Microsoft Excel were conducted to make the bibliometric research visual. The nature of our study is a systematic study and was conducted in China.

Results: 1061 articles were included in our study. The total cited times were 27,461 with the average number of 26. The most productive year was 2022, with a total of 158 publications. The United States contributed the highest number of articles (n = 389, 36.66%) and the Hospital for Special Surgery (n = 53, 5.00%) held the leading institution. "Orthopedics" became the dominant topic (n = 894, 84.26%) and the latest keywords "clinical outcomes", "acetabular cup placement", and "satisfaction" have mainly appeared since 2020.

Conclusions: Our analysis gives a comprehensive review of related articles on robotic and computer-assisted arthroplasty from past to future. The United States dominated studies of robotic and computer-assisted arthroplasty and a journal about arthroplasty was the most productive one. "Clinical outcomes", "Acetabular cup placement", and "Satisfaction" may become the future research hotspots.

Keywords: Robotic-assisted; VOSviewer; arthroplasty; bibliometric study; computer-assisted; visualization.

Figure 1.

Flow diagram of screening process concerning robotic and computer-assisted arthroplasty research.

Figure 2.

Publication and citation trends on robotic and computer-assisted arthroplasty between 1992 and 2023.

Figure 3.

The most prominent research topics in the field.

Figure 4.

(a) Mapping on co-cited references of studies related to robotic and computer – assisted arthroplasty. The size of a node indicates the citation number of the publication. The line between two nodes represents that both publications had been cited in one paper. The length of a line represents the closeness of the two publications; the link is closer; the length of the line is shorter. (b) Mapping on density visualization of co-cited references. Different colors represent different citation frequency. Purple represents few times; red represents average times and yellow represents many times. Items in one yellow circle are linked closer with each other than that in other color areas.

Figure 5.

(a) Mapping on co-cited authors of studies related to robotic and computer – assisted arthroplasty. The bigger size of a node represents more citation number of the author. The line between two nodes means that both authors had been cited in one publication. The length of a line represents the closeness of the two authors; shorter line means the link is closer. (b) Mapping on density visualization of co-cited authors. Different colors represent different citation frequency. Purple represents few times; red represents average times and yellow represents many times. Items in one yellow circle linked closer with each other than that in other color areas.

Figure 6.

(a) Mapping on co-occurrence of keywords related to robotic and computer – assisted arthroplasty. The size of a node indicates the frequency of the keywords. The line between two nodes represents that both keywords occurred in one publication. (b) Visualization of the keyword appearing time. Keywords in yellow appeared later than that in purple.