Global trends in research of acute type a aortic dissection: A bibliometric analysis from 2002 to 2022

BACKGROUND: Acute type A aortic dissection (ATAAD) is life-threatening and needs urgent and highly invasive surgery. So far, there is no comprehensive review of the status quo of ATAAD studies. Therefore, this study aimed to quantify and identify the global trends of ATAAD research over the past two decades through bibliometric analysis and to provide reference for clinical practice, research funding allocation, and decision-making. METHODS: The original research articles and reviews related to ATAAD research were downloaded from the Web of Science Core Collection on March 19, 2023. CiteSpace (6.2.1) and VOSviewer (1.6.18) were used for bibliometric analysis of the number of publications by each country, institution, and authors and the establishment of knowledge maps. The raw data collected were examined using the Online Analysis Platform of Bibliometric to assess the collaboration of countries in the field. RESULTS: The number of documents on ATAAD research increased continuously. A total of 1,943 publications published from 2002 to 2022 from 66 countries/regions were identified: 637 (32.78%) were conducted in China and 360 (18.53%) in the United States; 152 (cited frequency 941) were conducted by Capital Medical University and 107 (cited frequency 370) by Fujian Medical University. The Journal of Cardiac Surgery was the most frequently published journal (143 publications, cited frequency 695). The highest citation and co-cited journal was the Annals of Thoracic Surgery (cited frequency 3,888, co-cited frequency 6,224). We identified 8,050 authors among which Lizhong Sun (61 publications, cited frequency 721) had the largest number of publications, and Nienaber Christoph A (cited frequency 1,536, co-cited frequency 392) was co-cited most often. Meanwhile, the most common keywords were acute type A aortic dissection (occurrences, 1,211), surgery (occurrences, 657), repair (occurrences, 404), and management (occurrences, 386). The earliest and latest used keywords were “axillary artery” (average publication year: 2011.23) and “inflammation” (average publication year: 2019.09), respectively. The keyword “surgical treatment” (strength 12.31) and the co-cited reference “Evangelista A, 2018, Circulation” (strength 28.55) had the highest citation bursts. The keywords “impact” and “acute kidney injury” remained high citation bursts. The co-cited references with the largest and smallest size clusters were “cerebral protection” (#0, size = 126) and “pregnancy” (#12, size = 11). The reference “Hagan PG, 2000, JAMA” (cited frequency, 350) had the highest co-citations. CONCLUSIONS: The bibliometric and visualized analysis generated objective evidence for a comprehensive understanding and evaluation of ATAAD research.