Global research trends and clinical theme evolution in robot-assisted nephrectomy with venous tumor thrombectomy for...

Robot-assisted nephrectomy with renal vein or inferior vena cava (IVC) tumor thrombectomy is a technically demanding procedure used in selected patients with renal cell carcinoma (RCC) and venous tumor thrombus. The research map of this field has not been clearly described, and recent technical, comparative, and systemic-therapy developments make an updated focused analysis timely. We searched the Science Citation Index Expanded of the Web of Science Core Collection from database inception to 4 May 2026. English articles and reviews about robot-assisted nephrectomy or radical nephrectomy with renal vein or IVC tumor thrombectomy for RCC were included. Titles, abstracts, keywords, authors, affiliations, journals, citations, and cited references were extracted. Python 3.11 was used for descriptive analysis, keyword analysis, co-citation analysis, visualization, and clinical theme coding. We included 51 SCIE publications from 2011 to 2026, including 40 articles and 11 reviews. The papers received 1229 citations, with a mean of 24.10 citations per paper and a median of 12. Annual publications peaked in 2020 with 7 papers. The United States published 24 papers, China published 21, and Italy published 8 when all author affiliations were counted. The Chinese People's Liberation Army General Hospital published 14 papers, and the University of Southern California published 7. Ma X, Zhang X, and Wang BJ were the most productive authors. European Urology, Journal of Urology, and Journal of Endourology were the leading journals. After term cleaning, the most frequent keywords were renal cell carcinoma, tumor thrombus, robotic surgery, experience, inferior vena cava, and thrombectomy. This field has moved from early technical exploration to early evidence building. Future work should use multicenter prospective designs and should study high-level IVC thrombus, long-term oncologic outcomes, perioperative safety after neoadjuvant therapy, robotic training, and multidisciplinary care pathways.