Global evolution, intellectual structure, and emerging themes in robot-assisted breast oncologic surgery and...

Robotic breast surgery encompasses oncologic resection and cancer-related reconstruction, but the development and structure of this literature remain incompletely characterized. This study mapped publication growth, citation relationships, thematic evolution, and collaboration patterns in the field. Web of Science Core Collection, Scopus, and PubMed were searched through 1 August 2026. After merging, deduplication, and metadata assessment, two reviewers independently screened 769 records; 210 publications from 2012 to 2026 were included. Bibliometric performance indicators, citation and co-citation analysis, bibliographic coupling, keyword mapping, thematic evolution, and collaboration networks were examined. The corpus comprised 755 authors and 81 sources, with an annual growth rate of 24.5%; 132 publications (62.9%) appeared between 2023 and the search cut-off. Journal of Robotic Surgery was the most productive source. China and South Korea led corresponding-author output, whereas the United States occupied the principal bridging position in the country collaboration network. Nipple-sparing mastectomy and breast reconstruction dominated the conceptual structure. Citation and thematic analyses indicated a progression from technical feasibility toward learning curves, comparative outcomes, perioperative complications, and oncologic assessment, with single-port procedures and robot-assisted autologous reconstruction emerging as recent research directions. The international co-authorship rate was 13.33%, and collaboration remained concentrated within a limited number of research communities. These patterns describe research activity rather than clinical effectiveness. Further multicenter studies using standardized outcomes and longer oncologic follow-up are needed to evaluate the comparative clinical value of evolving robotic approaches.