Evolution of evidence in spinal surgery – past, present and future Scientometric analysis of randomized controlled trials in spinal surgery

Abstract
BACKGROUND
Spine surgery is evolving and in the due course of its evolution, it is useful to have a comprehensive summary of the process to have a greater understanding to refine our future directives. With the multiple domains of research in the spine, it
has become difficult for a surgeon to find the potential hotspots in research or identify the emerging research frontiers.
AIM
To analyze RCTs (1990–2019) for potential research domains along with their research networks and identify the hot topics for future research.
METHODS
A comprehensive and systematic analysis of all the RCTs published on spinal
surgery from 1990 to 2019 retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection
database. Scientometric and visual analysis of their characteristics, cooperation
networks, keywords, and citations were made using CiteSpace software. Journal and article impact index were retrieved from Reference Citation Analysis (RCA) Database.