Bibliometric Trends in Open Surgical and Endovascular Cerebrovascular Research

The last decade has witnessed a major expansion in endovascular interventions concurrent with a contraction of open neurovascular surgeries. Whether research efforts have also shifted from open to endovascular neurosurgery is an effect that has not been explored extensively. Understanding the bibliometric trend is important for researchers, funding agencies, and publishing journals. The aim of this review is to explore this potential shift. We compared the bibliometrics of open cerebrovascular and endovascular research articles published in two neurosurgical journals (Journal of Neurosurgery, Neurosurgery) and two neuroradiological journals (Journal of Neurointerventional Surgery, American Journal of Neuroradiology). Data were collected between September 26, 2021, and October 18, 2021. Articles published in 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017, and 2019 from the journals were screened. Neurovascular articles were classified into open surgical, endovascular, or mixed. Bibliometric parameters were collected via SCOPUS and journals’ websites. A total of 8,018 articles were screened, of which 1,551 were included (16.2% open, 62.2% endovascular, 21.5% mixed). Most articles were related to aneurysms (76%). Open-access status correlated with increased citations (p<0.001) and Altmetric (p<0.001), which measures online activity. Comparing 2011 and 2019, the article distribution (open/endovascular/mixed) has changed significantly (χ(2) test, p=0.002), with open articles dropping from 23.6% (68/288) to 12.9% (44/342) and endovascular articles rising from 56.6% (163/288) to 65.8% (225/342). Using the Kruskal-Wallis test, the citation distribution is different across the three groups in 2019 (p<0.001), favoring endovascular articles, but not in the other years. Our study suggests a trend of diminishing open neurovascular research output and increasing endovascular research output, in terms of both the number of articles and the citations. More time for citation accumulation may be required to verify this trend.