A bibliometric analysis of geographic origin, authorship, and scholarly impact in international spine journal publications

Over the past decades, spine research has grown substantially, and as the body of literature grows, it is valuable to understand the research landscape. This study aims to examine the geographic origins, author demographics, including the number and gender of authors, and publication output of three prominent spine journals and to assess their scholarly impact. A retrospective, bibliometric, cross-sectional analysis was conducted on articles published between 2000 and 2004 (period 1, P1), 2010 and 2014 (period 2, P2), and 2020 and 2024 (period 3, P3) in three spine journals: European Spine Journal (ESJ), Spine, and The Spine Journal (TSJ) . Bibliometric data were retrieved using PubMed’s Application Programming Interface (API). Some 14,653 articles underwent analysis. Spine had the highest output in P2 (2,946 articles), while TSJ peaked in P3. A marked increase in Asian contributions was observed, with a notable surge in Chinese publications within ESJ; these rose from 4 in P1 to 454 in P3. In the TSJ , the number of articles written by Asian authors increased from 23 to 306. Female first authorship in the ESJ increased from 10.0% to 17.1% and in TSJ , from 5.5% to 14.1%. A notable increase in the average number of authors per publication was observed across all journals. In ESJ, this rose from 4.3 to 7.6; in Spine, from 4.6 to 9.0; and in TSJ, from 4.0 to 8.3. This study reveals a rise in the number of scientific publications in spine surgery, characterized by an increasing proportion of publications originating from Asia, a higher number of authors per publication, and a growing proportion of female authors. While the progress observed in contributing countries and the increase in gender diversity are promising, disparities persist.