Bibliometric insights in surgical treatment of secondary hyperparathyroidism: Research status, hotspots, and global trends

Secondary hyperparathyroidism (SHPT) is mainly seen in advanced chronic kidney failure, and its main clinical feature is an increase in the synthesis and secretion of parathyroid hormone. Surgical treatment is typically considered when the parathyroid hormone level remains consistently above 800 pg/mL and is accompanied by hypercalcemia or when conservative treatment is ineffective. Secondary hyperparathyroidism may manifest as bone and joint pain, mental abnormalities, skin itching, and hyperpigmentation. There are 3 main surgical approaches for parathyroidectomy (PTX): subtotal PTX (sPTX), total PTX with parathyroid auto-transplantation (TPTX + AT) and total PTX without parathyroid auto-transplantation (TPTX). Complications that may arise after PTX include unsatisfactory surgical outcomes, recurrence, bone mineral disease and hungry bone syndrome. In this study, nearly 3 decades of scientific articles about the surgical treatment of SHPT were analyzed and summarized to gain a better understanding by using bibliometric method. 1389 publications from 1990 and 2023 were included in the WoS database through systematic retrieval. The general information was characterized, and the developmental skeleton and research frontiers were explored. CiteSpace was used to evaluate and visualize the results. 1389 publications were included in the results, and the frequency of citations was 15,688. The top 5 countries for the number of literatures published were USA, China, Japan, Italy, and Germany; The top 5 countries for literature centrality were USA, France, England, Romania, and Sweden. There are 10 institutions which the number of literatures from each institution was more than 20. The top 10 institutions all scored 0.04 or above for their Centrality score, which indicates that research in this area was relatively intensive and that there is much co-operation between institutions. The most cited authors were mainly from Japan and USA. Journals, such as Surgery World J Surg, J Clin Endocr Metab, Kidney Int, had greater influence in this field. Keyword analysis results showed that research mainly focuses on parathyroid hormone, surgery, chronic renal failure and subtotal parathyroidectomy. This bibliometric study provides a comprehensive analysis of global productivity, collaboration, and research hotspots within the Surgical treatment of secondary hyperparathyroidism, which will aid in directing research toward endoscopic thyroidectomy in the coming years.