Robotic Surgery Research in Urology: A Bibliometric Analysis of Field and Top 100 Articles

There has been a surge in robotic surgery research publications over the past 20 years. However, to date, there has been no characterization 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 characterize the distributions and characteristics of robotic surgery research in the urologic field, with subanalysis of the top 100 articles. The Web of Science Core Collection of the ISI Web of Science was searched and analyzed to determine distributions and characteristics of robotic urologic surgery research. The top 100 articles were categorized by urologic subfield and organ of pathology, with a level of evidence rating system applied (adapted from the Centre of Evidence-Based Medicine). The total number of articles retrieved was 1294 from 1999 to 2018. The number of articles published in the last decade has increased by 845.75%, with 153 articles published in the preceding decade. The United States 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 urologic research activity over the last decade, with level 3 evidence dominating the top 100 articles of the field.