Evolution of the Percutaneous Nephrolithotomy: A Holistic Investigation of Global Outputs with Bibliometric Analysis

Objective: This bibliometric study identifies the studies, institutions and journals with the highest impact by analyzing the articles published about percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PCNL) and further to establish trend topics and to holistically summarize and interpret collaboration among countries. Materials and Methods: Studies published about PCNL between 1975-2020 were downloaded from the Web of Science (WoS) database. They were analyzed using bibliometric and statistical methods. Spearman's correlation coefficient was used for correlation analysis. Non-linear regression analysis was used to estimate the number of publications in the coming years. Results: A total of 4170 publications were found and 1936 (46.4%) of these publications were articles. We observed that the articles on PCNL have gradually increased in an exponential trend. Top 5 countries having contributed most to the literature ranked as Turkiye (n=376), USA (n=332), China (n=323), India (n=210) and Iran (n=123). Top 3 most active institutions were ranked as Guangzhou Medical University (n=63), University of Health Sciences Turkiye, Istanbul Haseki Training and Research Hospital (n=52) and Baskent University (n=32). Conclusion: In our study, we observed that there has been an increase in the number of PCNL-related publications over the course of time. Besides, we determined that recent publications, mainly focused on the success and reliability of PCNL. In this context, there has been a steady increase in the number of studies on the use of Guy's scoring system for preoperative selection of eligible patients and surgical approaches such as mini PCNL, prone position.