Knowledge structure and emerging trends on osteonecrosis of the femoral head: a bibliometric and visualized study

Abstract

Background Osteonecrosis of the femoral head (ONFH) is a common disabling disease with considerable social and economic impacts. Although extensive studies related to ONFH have been conducted in recent years, a specific bibliometric analysis on this topic has not yet been performed. Our study attempted to summarize the comprehensive knowledge map, development landscape, and future directions of ONFH research with the bibliometric approach. Methods All publications concerning ONFH published from 2001 to 2020 were identified from Web of Science Core Collection. Key bibliometric indicators were calculated and evaluated using CiteSpace, VOSviewer, and the online bibliometric analysis platform. Results A total of 2594 publications were included. Our analysis revealed a significant exponential growth trend in the annual number of publications over the past 20 years (R2 = 0.9663). China, the USA, and Japan were the major contributors both from the quality and quantity points of view. Correlation analysis indicated that there was a high positive correlation between the number of publications and gross domestic product (r = 0.774), and a moderate positive correlation between publications and demographic factor (r = 0.673). All keywords were categorized into four clusters including Cluster 1 (etiology and risk factors study); Cluster 2 (basic research and stem cell therapy); cluster 3 (hip-preserving study); and Cluster 4 (hip replacement study). Stem cell therapy-related research has been recognized as an important research hotspot in this field. Several topics including exosomes, autophagy, biomarkers, osteogenic differentiation, microRNAs, steroid-induced osteonecrosis, mesenchymal stem cells, double-blind, early-stage osteonecrosis, and asymptomatic osteonecrosis were considered as research focuses in the near future. Conclusion Over the past two decades, increasing attention has been paid to global ONFH-related research. Our bibliometric findings provide valuable information for researchers to understand the basic knowledge structure, identify the current research hotspots, potential collaborators, and future research frontiers in this field.

Mapping Knowledge Landscapes and Emerging Trends of the Links Between Bone Metabolism and Diabetes Mellitus: A Bibliometric Analysis From 2000 to 2021

“…The above results reflect that the United States has made tremendous contribution and established its leading position in the domain of BMDM research. In addition to the BMDM research subject, earlier bibliometric studies revealed that the United States also had the highest number of publications in other areas of BM or DM researches (31,32,34). As for countries or institutions collaboration analysis, it can be seen from Figure 3B that the United States collaborated most closely with China, Italy, and Canada.…”

“…As can be seen from Supplementary Table 1, "glycation endproduct" was the largest cluster (#0), followed by "oxidative stress" (#1), and "energy metabolism" (#2). In addition, the timeline chart could cluster references and take time into account, which is convenient for us to understand the period of a particular topic and explore the evolution track of this field (34). According to mean year of these clusters, we can see that the research hotspots have shifted to "high glucose environment" (#8), "glycation end-product" (#0), and "sodium-glucose cotransporter" (#7).…”

“…Apart from cluster analysis, burst references are considered another important indicator to track and capture the research hotspots and emerging trends over time. Burst references refers to references heavily cited by other studies over a period of time, which implies that they have received particular attention at a certain time period (34). References with outbreak durations ≥5 years were shown in Figure 8.…”

“…Author keywords are usually the most highly represented terms selected to explain the subject matter of research (34). In this study, we constructed the keyword co-occurrence network map with VOSviewer software.…”

“…have also been studied with this approach. Our and other research teams have also investigated the publication status and research hotspots in the field of metabolic bone disorders including osteoporosis (32), hip fracture (33), osteonecrosis (34), and osteoarthritis (35) by using bibliometric methods, and mapped the overall knowledge structures and co-citation networks in these areas. Nevertheless, to the best of our knowledge, there are still no previous bibliometric studies reporting the links between BM and DM.…”