Past, Present and Future of Arthroscopic Research: A Scientometric Analysis of Research Frontiers in Arthroscopy

Purpose: Active research in arthroscopy in all its domains has been transcending into evidence-backed clinical practice over years. A look-back at the research developments in arthroscopy using scientometry for the past thirty years will help the researchers identify what has been investigated so far, and what needs to be done in the future.

Methods: We used the Web of Science-core collection database as the source for data retrieval. We used CiteSpace (5.7.R1) for scientometric and visualization analysis Visualization of the structure, regularity, and distribution of research domains in the arthroscopy was done with the analysis of the article co-citation data to mine the knowledge clustering and citation space distribution. We also analyzed the co-occurrence between the additional research units such as cooperation among authors, institutions, and countries in the field of arthroscopy.

Results: We recovered 383 RCTs and 11,853 non-RCT articles in the field of arthroscopy from the global literature of 15,766 arthroscopy-related publications from 1990 to 2019. Research co-operation group with the top contribution to the arthroscopic literature was from BG Domb, MJ Philippon, and SJ Nho for non-RCT articles and Casati A, Pluta A, and Lund B for RCTs. Weaker collaboration exists among the institutions globally, but the network of domestic institutions seemed stronger in co-institution analysis. USA and England have been the pioneers in research particularly the RCTs. The current hotspots were around the outcome analysis, particularly in the knee and shoulder pathologies. In the hip the main area of focus was the Femoro-Acetabular Impingement (FAI). The other areas of arthroscopy remain relatively less explored.

Conclusions: Research in arthroscopy is rapidly progressing. Poor international collaboration, the concentration of research only in certain areas of arthroscopy, and conduction of most RCTs only by certain institutes seem to be gross problems in arthroscopic research. Setting up of an International authoritative body for arthroscopic research is the way forward for arthroscopy.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s43465-021-00586-0.