Bibliometric analysis of research trends in early orthodontic treatment: a two-decade perspective (2000-2025)

Early orthodontic treatment has evolved significantly over the past decades, with advances in diagnostic techniques, treatment methodologies, and interdisciplinary approaches. Despite its importance in pediatric dental care, a comprehensive bibliometric evaluation of research trends in this field has been lacking.

To conduct a systematic bibliometric analysis of the research landscape and developmental trends in early orthodontic intervention for children and adolescents from 2000-2025.

Literature data were retrieved from Web of Science Core Collection and Scopus databases using comprehensive search strategies targeting early orthodontic treatment research. The final dataset of 906 articles was analyzed using VOSviewer 1.6.20 and CiteSpace 6.1R6 visualization software to examine publication trends, author and institutional collaboration networks, journal distributions, geographical contributions, and keyword co-occurrence patterns.

Research output demonstrated consistent growth from 6 publications in 2000 to 85 in 2023. Lorenzo Franchi emerged as the most productive author (12 publications), while the University of Milan led institutional contributions (28 publications). The American Journal of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics was the primary publication venue (88 articles). Italy (161 publications) and the USA (144 publications) were the leading contributors. Keyword analysis revealed "children" as the most frequent term (270 occurrences), followed by "orthodontic treatment" (125 occurrences) and "prevalence" (106 occurrences), with distinct evolution patterns showing a transition from fundamental concepts like "growth" (appearing in 2000) to specialized terms such as "obstructive sleep apnea" (2015) and "quality of life" (2020), while citation burst analysis identified "quality of life" with the strongest recent burst strength (5.92).

Early orthodontic treatment research has evolved from foundational concepts to patient-centered outcomes and technological applications, with increasing interdisciplinary focus and internationalization requiring sustained collaborative efforts to address emerging clinical priorities.