Global research trends in bone/cartilage organoids from 2010 to 2024: A bibliometric and visualization study

Bone/cartilage organoids have garnered significant attention in regenerative medicine due to their promising applications in tissue repair and disease modeling. Despite this growing interest, there is still a gap in understanding global research trends and developments in this field. This study provides a comprehensive review of the present status and emerging directions of bone/cartilage organoid research worldwide. Utilizing data from 288 records in the Web of Science Core Collection (2010 – 2024), we employed R, VOSviewer, CiteSpace, and GraphPad Prism to analyze the literature’s historical development, general characteristics, and keyword distributions. The analysis revealed a steady increase in publications since 2010, peaking in 2023, with the United States leading in contributions, and Bioactive Materials as the most influential journal. Noteworthy authors included Jiacan Su from China and Hans Clevers from the Netherlands. Research subareas were clustered into seven themes: Regenerative Medicine, Bone Regeneration, Bone Marrow Organoids, Differentiation, Extracellular Matrix, Expression, and Protein-Based Culture. Four main research directions were identified: stem cells and the microenvironment, biomaterials, regenerative medicine, and disease modeling/drug screening. This first bibliometric study on bone/cartilage organoids establishes a knowledge map, identifies key trends, and pinpoints potential hotspots, offering valuable insights for future research in this evolving field.