Deciphering the past status and future tendency: a comprehensive scientometric study on developmental dysplasia of...

Developmental dysplasia of the hip is a common musculoskeletal disorder in newborns and young children, attracting considerable controversy. The purpose of the present study was to analyze the research trends and hotspots over the past three decades in this field.

All related publications were collected from the Web of Science Core Collection from 1994 to 2023. Of these, characteristics of the top 50 cited articles for each decade (1994-2003, 2004-2013 and 2014-2023) were evaluated in detail. Visualized studies were operated via VOSviewer. GraphPad Prism and Microsoft Excel were used to perform statistical analysis. The characteristic of the present study is a cross-sectional study.

In total, 1,300 publications with 19,815 citations from 1994 to 2023 were selected. The number of publications increased significantly during the past three decades, from 23 in 1994 to 132 in 2023 (P < 0.0001). Studies with collaboration among institutions have raised significantly over time (P < 0.0001). The United States was the leading country to the top 50 publications in each decade. Publications with evidence level IV led the way every ten years. Visualized co-occurrence analysis clustered the keywords into four clusters: hip arthroplasty, congenital dislocation, ultrasound diagnosis and developmental dysplasia of the hip.

This study analyzed the global tendency and collaborations on developmental dysplasia of the hip over the past three decades. Even though the research trend has evolved to be collaborative with more multi-institutional publications and authors, studies with high evidence levels are still missing.