Background: Total knee arthroplasty (TKA) has brought hope to patients with malignant knee joint diseases. Infection is one of the serious complications after TKA, and the purpose of this study was to use bibliometrics to analyze the current research status of infection after this surgery, to unmask any deficiencies with current research, and to provide references for future researchers.
Methods: We used the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-E) database in the Web of Science Core Collection (WOSCC) as the data source, using the search terms "total knee arthroplasty" and "infection" respectively. The "And" operation was performed on the search results of the two subject terms, and the intersection of the two search results was taken as the final search result. CiteSpace software was used to analyze the results.
Results: The search results consisted of 5,600 documents, with a total citation frequency of 148,871. The average number of citations for each literature was 26.58, and the h-index was 142. The top five countries in the number of publications were the United States, China, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Spain, while the top five centrally ranked countries were the United States, the Netherlands, Germany, the United Kingdom, and France. The top five institutions with the number of publications were Thomas Jefferson Univ, Mayo Clin, Hosp Special Surg, Rush Univ, and Cleveland Clin, while the top institutions for centrality were Thomas Jefferson Univ, Tel Aviv Univ, Univ Melbourne, and Rush Univ. The top five authors of the number of published articles were Parvizi J, Mont MA, Valle CJD, Chen AF, and Hanssen AD, and the top three authors for centrality were Parvizi J, Mont MA, and Valle CJD. The main journals were J Bone Joint Surg Am, Clin Orthop Relat R, J Arthroplasty, J Bone Joint Surg Br, and Int Orthop, and the top five keywords used were total knee arthroplasty, total hip arthroplasty, replacement, infection, and arthroplasty.
Conclusions: There is a lack of studies with high-level evidence. The focus of related research in recent years has not changed significantly. More randomized controlled studies are required to provide evidence-based medicine.
Keywords: Total knee arthroplasty (TKA); bibliometrics analysis; infection; management; prevention.