Bibliometric And Visual Analysis of Video Assisted Thoracoskopic Surgery

ABSTRACT Introduction: The video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) method has been used in thoracic surgery for the last three decades, and segmentectomy operations performed by VATS have an increasingly broader area of usage including thoracic surgery, oncologic surgery, lung cancer, and metastatic lung tumors. The definition and applicability of VATS segmentectomy are dynamically broadening over time, and the number of published reports in this field is increasing. However, no bibliometric analysis of the segmental anatomy in VATS segmentectomy procedures was encountered. Objective: In this study, keywords and phrases including “VATS segmentectomy” were searched in the Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection, and the collected data were analyzed using the RStudio and VOSviewer programs. Method: The analyses focused on the current state of research on VATS segmentectomy, previous studies, recent studies, and expectations for the future. Results: A total of 693 publications were found. The average number of publications per year was 8.16. The most productive countries were respectively China and the US. The country with the highest number of citations was the US. The two most prominent WoS categories were surgery and the respiratory system. The most involved institution was Tongji University (China). Conclusion: In the keyword analyses, it was seen that the keywords segmentectomy and lung cancer were frequently used, and there were strong connections between the two. It was seen that the recent trend in research in this field involved video-assisted thoracoscopies and robotic surgery, but strong connections indicating the controversial nature of the outputs of research were identified. Keywords: VATS, Segmentectomy, Bibliometrics.