Global trends and frontiers of research on total disc replacement: A bibliometric analysis

With the increased risk of complications associated with traditional spinal fusion for the treatment of degenerative disc disease, total disc replacement (TDR) has received increasing attention in recent years. Despite the rapid development of its related research fields, its research status and the hotspot analysis are still unclear. Our goal was to identify and analyze the global research trends on TDR using bibliometric tools. All TDR data were obtained from the WoSCC. The information of research field was collected, including title, author, institutions, journals, countries, references, total citations, and years of publication for further analysis. From 1993 to 2022, a total of 1167 articles and 11,348 references were included in this field. These publications are mainly from 53 countries/regions and 174 journals, led by the United States and China. According to the citation report, the US was absolutely in the leading position in this research field. The most contribution institution and author were Sichuan University and Liu H. Spine and European Spine Journal were the most active journal on TDR research, with 205 and 118 articles. Meanwhile, they were also the most frequently cited journals. The “bone loss,” “cervical arthroplasty,” “hybrid surgery” were the most frequently cited areas of TDR research. Meanwhile, the latest research hotspots and directions were “cervical disc arthroplasty,” “7 year follow up,” “heterotopic ossification.” The scientific research on TDR has increased considerably in recent years. This study clarifies the current research status and future development trends in order to guide clinicians and researchers in the field of TDR. It can be inferred that cervical disc arthroplasty and bone loss will be the research focus in the future.