There has been a surge in robotic surgery research publications over the past 20 years. However, to date there has been no characterisation of urology's contribution to the robotic field, and there is a lack of bibliometric literature to guide future investigation. We conducted this bibliometric analysis to characterise the distributions and characteristics of robotic surgery research in the urological field, with sub-analysis of the top 100 articles.
The Web of Science Core Collection of the ISI Web of Science (WOS) was searched and analysed to determine distributions and characteristics of robotic urological surgery research. The top 100 articles were categorized by urological subfield and organ of pathology, with a level of evidence rating system applied (adapted from the Center of Evidence Based Medicine).
The total number of articles retrieved was 1294 from 1999 - 2018. The number of articles published in the last decade has increased by 845.75%, with 153 articles published in the preceding decade. The USA leads countries in publication with 699 (54.02%) articles across the field, and 71 within the top 100 articles. The Journal of Endourology published most articles (n = 292, 22.57%) within the field, while European Urology published most (n = 36) within the top 100 articles. Top 100 articles where generally associated with cancer (n = 76), with prostate cancer dominating literature (n = 38). The most common level of evidence for top 100 articles was that of a level 3 study (n = 31).
This analysis of research activity has the potential to guide future robotic surgery research trends in the field of urology. There has been an explosion in robotic surgery urological research activity over the last decade, with level 3 evidence dominating the top 100 articles of the field.
Journal of endourology. 2019 Mar 20 [Epub ahead of print]
Stuart Robert Jackson, Manish Patel Indravadan
Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, 2205, Camperdown, New South Wales, Australia ; ., Westmead Hospital, 8539, Urology, Westmead, New South Wales, Australia.