Research Tendency in Lumbar Spinal Stenosis over the Past Decade: A Bibliometric Analysis

OBJECTIVE

The purpose of this bibliometric analysis was to identify trends and hot topics in research on lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS) over the past decade, for helping researchers explore new directions for future research in that area.

METHODS

All research articles on LSS, written in English and indexed in the Web of Science database (WoS) between 2010 and 2020, were used. The visualization of network and in-depth bibliometric analysis including the number of publications, countries, institutions, journals, authors, cited references, and key words was carried out with the help of CiteSpace.

RESULTS

A total of 4033 papers (3577 original articles and 476 reviews) were identified and included in the study. The most productive year was in 2019. The Spine was the journal that published the highest number of articles and received the most citations. The most productive country and institutions in this field were the United States and Seoul National University, respectively. Kim HJ was the most prolific author, and Deyo RA ranked the first in the cited authors. The most cited article was published in 2010 by Deyo et al. and described the complications and charges index for LSS. From the coword cluster analysis, there were 3 frontiers in lumbar spinal stenosis: intervention, outcomes, and pathogenesis.

CONCLUSIONS

We have summarized the literature on LSS in the past decade including publication information, country, institution, authors, and journal. Research on minimally invasive surgery, outcomes, and gene therapies in LSS will be hot topics in the future.

Influence of perioperative complication severity on 1- and 2-year outcomes of low back surgery

Background

Several factors potentially influence outcomes of surgery, including perioperative complications. Complications may take many forms and the Clavien–Dindo (CD) classification is designed to categorize them by degree of severity. The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of perioperative complications by severity categorization on the 1-and 2-year pain and disability outcomes for patients who received low back surgery.

Materials and methods

Data used for the study involved a purposive sample (N = 477; 8.1%) from a spine outcomes registry of 5876 patients who received spine surgery and encountered complications. All complications were categorized using the CD classification and were collapsed according to distribution frequencies, i.e., Grade I–II and Grade III–V. Adjusted and unadjusted regression analyses were used to determine the association between CD classification and 1- and 2-year outcomes.

Results

The majority of surgical complications were Grade III−V (N = 358; 75.1%), with two incidences in which death occurred. For the unadjusted models, there were no significant associations between CD classification categorizations for 1-year outcomes; however, 2-year outcomes were significantly worse (P <0.05) for those with Grade III–V categorization. When adjusted and controlled for baseline characteristics, CD classification did not influence 1-or 2-year pain and disability outcomes.

Conclusions

When control variables are considered, the severity of perioperative surgical complications does not appear to influence 1- or 2-year pain and disability outcomes.

Level of evidence

Level 4.