Bibliometric and visual analysis of trends in tenosynovitis research from 1999 to 2021

Tenosynovitis is an acute or chronic inflammatory reaction of the tendon/tendon sheath. The purpose of this study is to summarize the current status, hotspots, and development trends in tenosynovitis related research.

Data on tenosynovitis from 1999 to 2021 were identified from the Web of Science core collection (WoSCC) database and analyzed using bibliometric software. CiteSpace was utilized to identify the top 25 references with the strongest citation bursts, the top 25 keywords with the strongest citation bursts, the dual-map overlay of journals, and a timeline of keywords. VOSviewer was utilized to conduct co-citation, academic collaboration, and keyword analysis. Microsoft Excel was used to draw relevant charts.

A total of 4,740 publications were collected in this study. The United States ranked first in terms of the H-index, total citations, and total number of publications. The University of California System, University of London, and UDICE-French Research Universities were the major contributing institutions to tenosynovitis research. The Journal of Hand Surgery-American Volume, Skeletal Radiology, and American Journal of Sports Medicine were the main publishing channels for tenosynovitis-related articles. Moreover, Maffulli, N., Van der Helm-van Mil, Annette H.M., Ostergaard, M. were major contributing authors to tenosynovitis research. Finally, research on nonsurgical treatment for tenosynovitis appears to be a future hot spot.

Overall, the number of publications on tenosynovitis grew over the 1999-2021 period. Our study summarized the research status and global trends of tenosynovitis from multiple angles (i.e., countries, institutions, authors, publications). These considerations are helpful to better understand the research hotspots and development trends in the field.