Department of Neurosurgery, Avicenne Military Hospital of Marrakech, Mohammed V University, Rabat, Morocco; Laboratory of Biostatistics Clinical Research and Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy, Mohammed V University, Rabat, Morocco.
World Neurosurg. 2019 Jun;126:314-321. doi: 10.1016/j.wneu.2019.03.095. Epub 2019 Mar 19.
To the best of our knowledge, no previous study has assessed the neurosurgical publications from Africa. A bibliometric analysis was performed in the present study to evaluate the contribution of African authors in neurosurgical journals worldwide and to discuss the approaches that could be used to enhance the quantity and quality of publications on this issue.
A literature search of neurosurgical publications by African investigators was performed using the PubMed database from 1999 to 2018. The total number of articles per country was tabulated and normalized by the number of neurosurgeons in each country.
A total of 974 articles reported from 1999 to 2018 from 31 African countries were identified and analyzed. The number of African neurosurgical publications have increased remarkably during the past decade. However, a wide disparity exists in the productivity among the countries, especially when normalized by the number of neurosurgeons. Most of the research publications have been case series and case reports, with very few clinical trials, meta-analyses, or international collaborations. According to the neurosurgical research areas, the most representative subspecialties were the spine, intracranial tumor, hydrocephalus, and head injury.
African neurosurgeons will be able to meet the challenges of the new century with the appropriate use of its resources and staff, regardless of the difficulties they face. However, African neurosurgical research could be improved by teaching research methods and medical writing and should focus more on modern neurosurgical topics by highlighting continental particularities. African neurosurgeons should collaborate with each other (locally, regionally, and abroad) and with foreign centers for better quality research and international visibility.
据我们所知，之前尚无研究评估过非洲的神经外科学术出版物。本研究进行了文献计量分析，以评估非洲作者在全球神经外科期刊中的贡献，并讨论可用于提高该领域出版物数量和质量的方法。
使用 PubMed 数据库，对 1999 年至 2018 年期间非洲研究人员发表的神经外科学术出版物进行了文献检索。对每个国家的文章总数进行了列表，并按每个国家的神经外科医生人数进行了标准化。
共确定并分析了 1999 年至 2018 年来自 31 个非洲国家的 974 篇文章。在过去十年中，非洲神经外科学术出版物的数量显著增加。然而，各国的生产力差异很大，尤其是按神经外科医生人数标准化后更是如此。大多数研究出版物为病例系列和病例报告，临床试验、荟萃分析或国际合作非常少。根据神经外科研究领域，最具代表性的亚专科是脊柱、颅内肿瘤、脑积水和头部损伤。
非洲神经外科医生将能够利用其资源和人员，应对新世纪的挑战，无论他们面临何种困难。然而，通过教授研究方法和医学写作，可以提高非洲神经外科学术研究，并且应该更加关注现代神经外科课题，突出非洲大陆的特点。非洲神经外科医生应该彼此合作（本地、地区和国际），并与外国中心合作，以提高研究质量和国际知名度。
