The recent two decades of traumatic brain injury: a bibliometric analysis and systematic review

Background: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a serious public health burden worldwide, with a mortality rate of 20–30%; however, reducing the incidence and mortality rates of TBI remains a major challenge. This study provides a multidimensional analysis to explore the potential breakthroughs in TBI over the past two decades. Materials and methods: The authors used bibliometric and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) analyses to analyze publications focusing on TBI published between 2003 and 2022 from the Web of Science Core Collection (WOSCC) database to identify core journals and collaborations among countries/regions, institutions, authors, and research trends. Results: Over the past 20 years, 41 545 articles on TBI from 3043 journals were included, with 12 916 authors from 20 449 institutions across 145 countries/regions. The annual number of publications has increased 10-fold compared to previous publications. This study revealed that high-income countries, especially the United States, have a significant influence. Collaboration was limited to several countries/regions. The LDA results indicated that the hotspots included four main areas: ‘Clinical finding’, ‘Molecular mechanism’, ‘Epidemiology’, and ‘Prognosis’. Epidemiological research has consistently increased in recent years. Through epidemiological topic analysis, the main etiology of TBI has shifted from traffic accidents to falls in a demographically aging society. Conclusion: Over the past two decades, TBI research has developed rapidly, and its epidemiology has received increasing attention. Reducing the incidence of TBI from a preventive perspective is emerging as a trend to alleviate the future social burden; therefore, epidemiological research might bring breakthroughs in TBI.