[Disk surgery--neurosurgery, orthopedic surgery or both?]

Area of Science:

• Spine Surgery Research
• Bibliometrics
• Medical Publication Analysis

Background:

• Disc surgery research distribution between neurological and orthopedic departments is not well-defined.
• Understanding publication trends can inform research focus and collaboration.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the global and Nordic distribution of research literature on disc surgery.
• To compare publication output and journal placement between neurosurgical and orthopedic institutions.

Main Methods:

• Bibliometric analysis of indexed papers on disc surgery.
• Comparison of publication numbers and journal affiliations.
• Analysis of cited references in selected papers.

Main Results:

• Globally, neurosurgical institutions published nearly twice as many disc surgery papers as orthopedic ones.
• Sweden showed an inverse trend, with orthopedic surgeons publishing more.
• Neurosurgical papers were more frequently published in non-neurosurgical journals (14%) than vice-versa (0%).
• Neurosurgical papers cited orthopedic literature more often (22%) than orthopedic papers cited neurosurgical literature (4%).

Conclusions:

• Significant differences exist in disc surgery research output and publication patterns between neurosurgery and orthopedics.
• Neurosurgical research on disc surgery shows greater interdisciplinary engagement with orthopedics.
• The findings highlight potential areas for collaboration and resource allocation in spine surgery research.