Global research trends and thematic evolution in robotic craniofacial and facial reconstruction and its enabling digital technologies: a bibliometric and visualisation study

Abstract

Robotic craniofacial and facial reconstruction is an emerging interdisciplinary field that increasingly intersects with navigation-guided surgery, computer-assisted planning, virtual surgical planning, CAD/CAM workflows, image-guided surgery, augmented reality, and other enabling digital technologies. However, the global research landscape and thematic evolution of this field remain insufficiently characterised. This study aimed to map publication activity, collaboration patterns, citation structures, and research themes in robotic craniofacial and facial reconstruction and its enabling digital technologies. Publications indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection between 1 January 2000 and 31 December 2025 were retrieved from the Science Citation Index Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index. English-language original articles and reviews were included. A sensitivity-oriented search strategy was used, followed by manual screening according to predefined eligibility criteria. Bibliometric and visualisation analyses were performed using Bibliometrix, CiteSpace, VOSviewer, and Scimago Graphica. Annual publication trends, country and institutional contributions, author and journal patterns, citation and co-citation structures, keyword co-occurrence, burst terms, and thematic evolution were analysed. A total of 168 publications were included, comprising 149 original articles and 19 reviews. The first eligible publication appeared in 2005, and publication activity became more visible in the later study period. Within the retrieved dataset, 2025 showed the highest annual publication output, although this recent value should be interpreted cautiously because of possible indexing dynamics. Research activity and citation accumulation were concentrated in a limited number of countries, institutions, authors, and journals. Institutional analysis was based on full-counting affiliation occurrences rather than unique publication counts. Keyword and co-citation analyses showed that the literature evolved from early attention to navigation, registration, and image-guided surgery towards more application-oriented topics, including virtual surgical planning, dynamic navigation, osteotomy, mandibular reconstruction, accuracy, and robot-assisted reconstruction. Robotic craniofacial and facial reconstruction and its enabling digital technologies represent a small but increasingly visible interdisciplinary research area. The field has evolved from early computer-assisted localisation and navigation towards more reconstruction-oriented and digitally integrated workflows. These findings should be interpreted as bibliometric evidence of publication behaviour, citation structure, collaboration patterns, and thematic attention rather than direct evidence of clinical effectiveness or technical superiority. Future prospective, multicentre, and outcome-standardised studies are needed to clarify surgical accuracy, reconstruction quality, workflow efficiency, cost-effectiveness, accessibility, and long-term patient-centred outcomes.

Keywords: Bibliometric analysis; Craniofacial reconstruction; Enabling digital technologies; Facial reconstruction; Robotic surgery; Virtual surgical planning.