Purpose: Arthroscopy is an established sub-speciality in orthopaedics. With advancing technology, instrumentation and implants, this sub-speciality has seen an explosion of knowledge and techniques since its inception. The indications for arthroscopic management are increasing and, hence, the number of publications on this topic. There has been no study looking into the bibliometrics of all publications within this speciality. The purpose of this study was to look into the trends of published articles on arthroscopy from PubMed and Scopus including studying their citation numbers.
Materials and methods: We set out to look into the number of publications from the earliest up to 2019 and their trends and citation numbers in PubMed and Scopus. We also performed a VOS viewer analysis of MeSH terms and titles of publications to look at research trends over time.
Results: There were 41,149 articles published on PubMed since 1955 and 50,373 articles on Scopus since 1939. The total number of citations were 912,630 for 38,338 cited articles. With 2864 publications in 2019, there was a more than four-fold increase from the number published in the year 2000. The knee joint was the most frequently published joint with an increasing trend in hip arthroscopy. Cohort studies were the most common with 13,180 articles followed by Reviews with 5746 articles. The top 10 authors, universities and journals were listed along with citation numbers. We analysed the trends of publications for each joint and compared them. Yearly citations have progressively increased to reach a maximum of 45,407 in 2007. Arthroscopy was the most published and cited journal on this topic. The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (JBJS) (Am) had the most citations per article. The USA and Hospital for Special Surgery, New York were the most published country and university, respectively.
Conclusions: There is a healthy growth of publications on the subject of arthroscopy with a steep increase in the number of publications and citations in recent years. VOS Viewer analysis showed an evolution of research and practice in the field of arthroscopy. Recommendations were made for databases and search engines to improve on the search and analysis of such studies in the future.
Level of evidence: 4.