Thromboprophylaxis across orthopaedic surgery: Bibliometric analysis of the most cited articles.

PURPOSE

One of the most common adverse events after orthopaedic surgery, with a potential for subsequent serious morbidity and mortality is venous thromboembolism (VTE). Bibliometric analysis has been performed regarding many topics and across orthopaedics. As DVT prophylaxis is a major component of both orthopaedic surgery considerations and research, a bibliometric analysis in this area would prove beneficial in not only in understanding the research done in the field thus far, but would also direct future research efforts.

METHODS

The Web of Science (WoS) database from the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) was used to compile articles for bibliometric analysis using Boolean search: ((Orthopaedic∗ OR Orthopaedic∗) AND (thromboprophylaxis OR Thromboembolism OR Deep vein thrombosis OR thrombus OR embolism OR anticoagulation OR Embolus OR prophylaxis)).

RESULTS

The Top 100 cited articles included in the final list generated a total of 21,099 citations. The highest cited article was by Geerts et al. published in Chest, which had a total of 2802 on WoS, and a calculated citation density of 215.54 of citations/years since publication. Comparing the overall citation against the year of publication there was a slight positive trend favoring more recent publications (R-value: 0.142; adjusted R-squared: 0.01; p = 0.16). Analysis of an articles Level of Evidence (LOE), 17 were grade with a level of I.

CONCLUSIONS

Orthopaedic thromboprophylaxis is an ever-changing field that is at the forefront of orthopaedic literature. The significant trend favoring high quality research within orthopaedic thromboprophylaxis demonstrates the importance of this topic and there was a need for a guide to best understand the evolution of DVT prophylaxis.