Global trends in proximal femoral trabecular research: A bibliometric and visualized analysis

Abstract

Introduction

Hip disease is a global public health issue, associated with high morbidity, mortality, and healthcare costs. Although research on proximal femoral trabeculae has been conducted for over a century, no bibliometric analysis has been carried out. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the existing research landscape, identify emerging trends, and offer insights for future studies.

Method

The scientific output related to the trabeculae within the human proximal femur from 2004 to 2023 was sourced from the Web of Science Core Collection. Moreover, both the annual publications and cumulative totals over this period were summarized in Excel. The VOS viewer was utilized to analyze co-authorship and co-citation relationship between authors, institutions, countries, references and journals. CiteSpace was used to cluster the keywords and research frontiers in this field.

Results

A total of 365 publications were extracted, with the USA emerging as the primary contributor to this field, accounting for 133 publications with 5807 total citations, averaging 43.7 citations per publication. The Journal of Bone and Mineral Research has been identified as the most co-cited journal with a total of 1742 citations. The journals can be categorized into 5 distinct clusters, including medical imaging, orthopedic clinical research, research on endocrine and metabolic related diseases, human evolution and anatomy related research, biomechanics and modeling. The keyword with the highest co-occurrence frequency is “bone mineral density”. The keywords were stratified into six clusters, including DXA, bone remodeling, diagnosis, titanium alloy bionic cannulated screws, individual trabecula segmentation, and QCT. More recently, the focus has expanded to three-dimensional modeling, falls, microarchitecture, and avascular necrosis.

Conclusions

Evaluation of proximal femoral strength can be improved by combining structural parameters with bone mineral density by DXA or QCT. Three-dimensional analysis, microarchitecture, and bionic implants are emerging as significant areas of focus and trends for future research.