Trends in Rhinoplasty Research in Saudi Arabia: A 30-Year Bibliometric Analysis

Rhinoplasty is one of the most commonly performed aesthetic surgeries. Saudi Arabia has a large number of rhinoplasty publications. Here, we aimed to assess the past, present, and future research output related to rhinoplasty in Saudi Arabia and compare it with global output. We performed a bibliometric analysis to evaluate rhinoplasty research productivity trends in Saudi Arabia from 1995 to 2021 in both cosmetic and reconstructive rhinoplasties. We considered all publications whose first authors were from Saudi Arabia or whose authors contributed significantly to a paper from Saudi Arabia, even though the first author was not from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. We evaluated the research quality of the articles using the impact factor of the journal in which the article was published. For each article, the number of authors, number of citations received, study design, region of the first author, and the level of evidence were collected. We gained several insights into the global trends of rhinoplasty in research and its position. We observed a significant increase in the number of publications on rhinoplasty in Saudi Arabia. Although there was no significant increase in the impact factor, most publications had a level of evidence of I or II.