Research Hotspots and Emerging Trends of Facial Rejuvenation: A Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

Background: In recent years, the demand for facial rejuvenation is increasing year by year. This study aims to use bibliometric analysis to construct a visualization map of the facial rejuvenation research and provide the research hotspots and trend frontiers in the field.

Methods: Publications on facial rejuvenation research were extracted from the Web of Science Core Collection database. VOSviewer 1.6.18 was used to analyze the co-authorship, the citations of countries, institutions, and authors, the co-occurrence of keywords, and the journals in which the studies were published.

Results: In total, 6,196 records of facial rejuvenation research published between 2000 and 2021 were collected. The USA had published the most publications in this field (2,647), and its main partners were Canada, Germany, and China. University of California, Los Angeles, was the institution with the greatest contribution (127 publications). Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (623 publications) published the most research in this field and was also the most frequently co-cited journal (17,349 citations, total link strength: 586,955). Rohrich RJ (70 publications) was the most prolific and most frequently co-cited author (1,230 citations, TLS: 26,603). Among the 100 most cited articles, 57 articles are amenable to grading level of evidence, and most papers presented their findings utilizing level IV evidence.

Conclusions: At present, the research hotspots in this field included the following six aspects: facial photoelectric therapy, aging manifestation and treatment in the middle of the face, the application of autologous fat transfer in facial rejuvenation, facial plastic surgery, facial injection cosmetology, and rhytidectomy and related anatomy. According to the analysis of the timing diagram, the research trends were esthetic medicine, mesenchymal stem cells, laser therapy, the application of platelet-rich plasma, and platelet-rich fibrin. This journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each article. For a full description of these Evidence-Based Medicine ratings, please refer to the Table of Contents or the online Instructions to Authors www.springer.com/00266.

Level of evidence iii: This journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each article. For a full description of these Evidence-Based Medicine ratings, please refer to the Table of Contents or the online Instructions to Authors www.springer.com/00266 .

Keywords: Bibliometric Analysis; Facial Aging; Facial Rejuvenation; Hotspots; Trends.