Mandibular Advancement Devices for Obstructive Sleep Apnea: Bibliometric Analysis (1984-2024)

To conduct a bibliometric analysis of scientific publications on mandibular advancement devices (MADs) for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), evaluating publication trends, citation impact, productive countries, institutions, authorship patterns, and keyword co-occurrence to identify key contributors and research directions.

A comprehensive search was performed in the Web of Science Core Collection on May 12, 2025, using topic-specific keywords related to MADs and oral appliances. The search covered literature published from 1984 to December 31, 2024. After excluding non-research items such as early access articles, letters, and corrections, 2,610 documents were included. VOSviewer and Microsoft Excel were used to extract and analyze data on publication metrics, collaboration networks, and keyword trends.

Publication volume increased significantly over the past two decades, with 62.3% of the documents published between 2015 and 2024. The United States led in both number of publications and citations, while the Netherlands and Sweden demonstrated the highest citation impact. The University of Sydney, University of Antwerp, and University of British Columbia were among the top contributing institutions. Peter A. Cistulli was the most cited author. Collaboration among authors has increased, and multi-author studies tend to receive higher citations. Keyword analysis highlighted central research themes including OSA, MADs, CPAP, and diagnostic tools such as polysomnography.

Global research on MADs for OSA has expanded notably, especially in the last decade. High-impact work is linked to international collaboration and focused efforts from leading institutions.