Trends in endovascular aneurysm repair research: bibliometric analysis from 1994 to 2017

Since endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR) was first introduced in 1991, it has undergone rapid technical and quantitative developments. We analyzed the characteristics and trends of EVAR research through bibliometric analysis.

Comprehensive online searches focused on EVAR were performed from January 1994 to August 2017. The following information was collected: title, year of publication, countries' contribution, authorship, subspecialty, institution, subject category, and top 10 cited articles.

A significant increase was demonstrated globally in the number of annual publications on EVAR. The highest number of publications was from the United States (n = 849, 35.08%), followed by England (n = 343, 14.17%), and the institutions with highest number of publications were Stanford University (n = 61, 2.52%) and Skane University Hospital Malmo (n = 45, 1.86%). The Journal of Vascular Surgery published approximately one quarter of the total publications. Vascular surgeons produced the most publications (n = 1871, 78.14%), followed by radiologists (n = 377, 15.58%) and cardiologists (n = 73, 3.02%). The most studied topics on EVAR were complications and procedures. The number of publications on complex EVAR and EVAR in juxtarenal aneurysm has increased more from 2013 to 2017 (5.1%, 9.5%) compared with from 1998 to 2002 (2.1%, 1.8%).

Our bibliometric analysis showed the characteristics and trends of publications on EVAR over a period of 25 years. The results of the bibliometric analysis revealed the quantitative improvements of publications and the qualitative improvements in challenging EVAR.