The Upsurge in Research and Publication on Articular Cartilage Repair in the Last 10 Years

This study aims to study the publication trends in articular cartilage repair (ACR) techniques, over the last 10 years. A literature search was performed on the PubMed, Web of Science, and SCOPUS databases. We used suitable keywords and Boolean operators (articular cartilage injury AND “marrow stimulation OR microfracture (MFx),” “osteochondral autograft,” “osteochondral allograft” and “autologous chondrocyte implantation (ACI),” “scaffold”), on January 1, 2019. Trends in publication on these topics were analyzed, focusing on publications over the last 10 years, type of research, authors, institution, and country. There was an increasing trend in publications related to ACR. A search on PubMed revealed 698, 225, 293, 857, and 982 documents on searching for “articular cartilage” AND “marrow stimulation OR microfracture,” “osteochondral autograft,” “osteochondral allograft,” “ACI,” and “scaffold,” respectively. Similar searches revealed 1154, 219, 330, 1727, and 2742 documents on Web of science and 934, 301, 383, 944, and 2026 on SCOPUS, respectively, in the same order of topics. Overall, most papers were published from the United States and European countries, and Cole BJ was the most published author. There was an increasing trend in the number of publications as well as citations, with international collaboration among researchers. It implies that this field is growing rapidly. The authors from globally recognized and leading clinical institutions in the developed world contributed maximally to these publications. Most of these papers were published in high-impact arthroscopy subspecialty journals. Level of evidence: Level IV.