Research hotspots and trends of pediatric bone age: A bibliometric and visualization analysis.

Purpose: Research related to pediatric bone age has gained substantial scholarly attention over recent decades, given its critical importance in monitoring growth and guiding clinical decision-making in children. This study aims to identify research hotspots and forecast future trends in the field of bone age assessment through bibliometric and visualization analyses.

Method: A comprehensive bibliometric analysis was conducted using the Web of Science Core Collection to retrieve publications related to pediatric bone age from 1965 to 2024. Visualization analyses were performed utilizing VOSviewer (version 1.6.20), CiteSpace (version 6.3.R1), and the R package "bibliometrix."

Results: A total of 4,652 publications on pediatric bone age were subjected for analysis, with an annual growth rate of 8.09%. The United States emerged as the leading contributor, accounting for 27.7% of the total publications, followed by China and Italy. Harvard University was identified as the most productive institution, with 328 publications, and the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism was the most influential journal in the field. The top three frequently occurring keywords included "growth," "age," and "therapy." Keyword bursts revealed emerging keywords such as "deep learning" and "artificial intelligence."

Conclusion: This bibliometric analysis identified that the future research within this area is expected to focus on integrating deep learning and artificial intelligence to improve diagnostic accuracy and clinical applications.

Clinical trial number: Not applicable.