Evolution of evidence in spinal surgery – past, present and future Scientometric analysis of randomized controlled trials in spinal surgery

Table 1 Top 10 journals in spinal surgery based on the co-citation network frequency

Rank	Source	Cited frequency	Impact factor	H-index	Degree	Centrality	2022 JAII
1	Spine	559	2.646	243	42	0.53	44.770
2	Eur Spine J	371	2.458	128	24	0.05	-
3	J Bone Joint Surg Am	322	4.578	249	33	0.24	55.199
4	Spine J	269	3.191	102	13	0.01	16.013
5	J Neurosurg-Spine	205	3.011	93	13	0	18.692
6	Clin Orthop Relat R	198	4.329	197	23	0.05	25.424
7	J Spinal Disord Tech	156	1.594	79	11	0	4.831
8	Neurosurgery	143	4.853	192	23	0.04	23.060
9	New Engl J Med	137	74.699	987	17	0.08	110.705
10	J-J Am Med Assoc	120	45.540	654	19	0.04	38.773

JAII: Journal Article Influence Index.

Table 2 Top 10 authors in spinal surgery based on the co-citation network frequency

Rank	Author	Cited frequency	H-index	Degree	Centrality
1	Weinstein JN	94	68	35	0.06
2	Deyo RA	83	116	55	0.21
3	Atlas SJ	57	43	37	0.08
4	Ware JE	55	78	47	0.27
5	Fairbank JCT	37	38	28	0.04
6	Fritzell P	35	15	38	0.18
7	Akbarnia BA	26	42	10	0
8	Carragee EJ	24	50	18	0.06
9	Zdeblick TA	22	41	38	0.21
10	Cloward RB	22	23	37	0.06

Table 3 Co-institution collaboration network map in spinal surgery

Rank	Institutions	Publications	Degree	Centrality	Half-life
1	Thomas Jefferson Univ	16	8	0.02	1.5
2	Seoul National Univ	11	4	0	0.5
3	Univ California San Francisco	10	5	0.02	6.5
4	Dartmouth Med School	8	10	0.05	3.5
5	Dartmouth Inst Health Policy & Clinical Practice	8	5	0	0.5
6	Rush Univ	8	5	0.02	2.5
7	Linkoping Univ	8	10	0.01	3.5
8	Dartmouth Hitchcock Med Cen	8	5	0.01	0.5
9	Karolinska Inst	8	9	0	3.5
10	Leiden Univ	8	2	0	7.5

Table 4 Co-country collaboration network map in spinal surgery

Rank	Country	Publications	Percent	Degree	Burst	Half-life
1	United States	263	37.8	15	5.11	16.5
2	China	71	10.2	5	-	8.5
3	Germany	59	8.5	9	4.18	13.5
4	South Korea	36	5.2	1	-	5.5
5	Sweden	35	5	10	4.71	14.5
6	England	27	3.9	12	5.72	7.5
7	Netherlands	23	3.3	4	-	8.5
8	Canada	20	2.9	5	-	5.5
9	Japan	15	2.2	0	-	2.5
10	Denmark	13	1.9	7	-	9.5

Table 5 Keyword analysis in spinal surgery

Topic	Keyword	Frequency	Centrality	Degree	Burst
1	Spine	133	0.27	22	-
	Lumbar spine	42	0.1	14	3.53
	Cervical spine	7	0.03	5	3.84
2	Spondylolisthesis	11	0.09	6	-
	Disease	9	0	5	4.7
	Spinal stenosis	7	0.01	6	-
	Stenosis	6	0	4	3.73
	Degenerative spondylolisthesis	5	0	4	-
	Herniation	5	0.01	6	-
	Intervertebral disc	5	0	2	-
	Scoliosis	5	0	2	-
3	Low back pain	104	0.2	21	-
	Pain	36	0.14	13	3.67
	Radiculopathy	10	0	4	4.35
	Sciatica	7	0.05	6	3.94
4	Surgery	208	0.2	18	-
	Fusion	91	0.3	24	-
	Spine surgery	87	0.09	14	-
	Outcome	79	0.09	16	-
	Management	62	0.16	16	7.22
	Complication	59	0.2	18	-
	Follow-up	42	0.16	19	5.11
	Diskectomy	32	0.19	19	5.65
	Spinal fusion	20	0.03	8	3.58
	Decompression	20	0.09	11	4.05
	Arthrodesis	19	0.16	14	3.48
	Interbody fusion	15	0.05	7	-
	Nonoperative treatment	14	0.02	9	7.77
	Postoperative pain	12	0	5	-
	Analgesia	8	0	2	-
	Discectomy	7	0.02	8	3.47
	Instrumentation	7	0.01	4	4.36
	Nonsurgical management	7	0.01	7	-
	Tranexamic acid	6	0	5	-
	Rehabilitation	6	0	2	-
	Bone graft	5	0	4	-
	Laminectomy	5	0	3	-
	Arthroplasty	5	0	2	-
	Total disc replacement	5	0.01	3	-
5	Efficacy	40	0.07	15	-
	Reliability	9	0.07	8	-
	Randomized controlled trial	8	0	2	-
	Risk	6	0.01	4	-
	Safety	6	0	5	-
	Children	5	0	2	-

Table 6 Top 10 cited literature in spinal surgery

Rank	Frequency	Author	Journal	Year	Burst	Half-life	Impact index
1	24	Weinstein JN	JAMA	2006	8.79	4.5	44.9
2	24	Heller JG	Spine	2009	5.39	3.5	26.9
3	22	Weinstein JN	JAMA	2006	7.75	3.5	31.1
4	21	Murrey D	Spine J	2009	5.66	4.5	26.3
5	20	Akbarnia BA	Spine	2013	7.3	3.5	16.3
6	19	Cheung KMC	Lancet	2012	7.6	4.5	19.1
7	19	Weinstein JN	New Engl J Med	2008	4.66	2.5	48.2
8	19	Weinstein JN	New Engl J Med	2007	5.37	3.5	37.2
9	16	Bess S	J Bone Joint Surg Am	2010	7.67	6.5	29.1
10	16	Dannawi Z	Bone Joint J	2013	7.67	3.5	13.3

Table 7 Cluster summary of co-citation network

Cluster ID	Size	Silhouette	Mean (Year)	Label (LLR)
0	69	0.925	2006	Spinal stenosis, sciatica
1	63	0.982	2009	Anterior cervical discectomy and fusion, clinical outcome
3	57	0.952	2002	Chronic low back pain, degenerative disc disease
5	22	0.968	2003	Cloward, nerve injury
6	21	0.991	2011	Spine Patient Outcomes Research Trial (SPORT), National Surgical Quality Improvement Project (NSQIP)
9	13	0.963	2010	Minimally invasive decompression, multicenter study
11	11	1	2005	Discogenic, Prospective randomized multicenter clinical study
14	6	0.995	2008	Biologics, extreme lateral interbody fusion

Silhouette is a parameter in CiteSpace software to analyze the clustering effect in terms of homogeneity of the network. A value closer to 1 means higher homogeneity and results more than 0.7 has high reliability.

Table 8 Top 10 subject categories in spinal surgery

Rank	Category	Frequency	Centrality	Burst
1	Neurosciences and neurology	390	0.03	7.18
2	Clinical neurology	389	0.03	7.23
3	Orthopedics	367	0.04	11.42
4	Surgery	151	0.06	-
5	Anesthesiology	67	0.05	-
6	General and internal medicine	53	0.03	-
7	Research and experimental medicine	26	0.01	-
8	Rheumatology	14	0.02	-
9	Rehabilitation	13	0.01	-
10	Pharmacology and pharmacy	5	0.00	-

Table 9 Research hotspots in spinal surgery

Category	Hotspot
Patient	Spinal cord injury
	Spondylolisthesis
	Spinal stenosis
	Intervertebral disc disease
	Scoliosis
Intervention	Arthroplasty
	Fusion surgery
	Decompression surgery
	Instrumentation surgery
	Biological therapy
Comparator	Conventional treatment methods
Outcome	Clinical outcome
	Patient reported outcome measures