Bibliometric Analysis of Research Trends Related to the Publication of Clinical Trials on the Treatment of Temporomandibular Disorders Between 1973 and 2023

TL;DR

This paper analyzes trends in clinical trial publications on treating temporomandibular disorders from 1973 to 2023, showing growth and highlighting key contributors and therapies.

Contribution

The study provides a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of clinical trials on TMD treatments over 50 years, identifying trends and gaps in research.

Findings

There was a significant increase in clinical trial publications on TMD treatments in the last 10 years.

Conservative and minimally invasive therapies were the most commonly studied in recent years.

The USA, Brazil, and Turkey were the top contributors to TMD treatment research publications.

Abstract

Objective: To perform a bibliometric analysis of clinical trials (CTs) that evaluated the effectiveness of treatments for temporomandibular disorders (TMDs) between 1973 and 2023.

Materials and methods: This bibliometric study analyzed CT on TMD treatment identified in Scopus and Web of Science (WoS) databases through a query in MeSH terms. The main characteristics analyzed were year of publication, institutions, authors, citations, and keywords. Data were retrieved on March 18, 2024. VOSviewer and CiteSpace tools were used to create bibliometric networks and other visualizations.

Results: A total of 559 CTs evaluating TMD treatments were identified. A remarkable growth was observed in the last 10 years, with USA, Brazil, and Turkey being the main contributors in publications. Conservative therapies (COTs) such as physiotherapy and the use of occlusal splints, together with minimally invasive therapies (MITs), such as joint level injections, were the most applied in recent years. The Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery and Cranio—Journal of Craniomandibular and Sleep Practice were the leading journals in the field and with an important number of citations. The University of São Paulo and Universidade Nove de Julho were the institutions with the highest contribution of CTs. The most prolific author had 12 publications.

Conclusion: Clinical research on TMD treatments is extensive and growing; however, there are large differences in the number of CTs related to emerging therapies. Future studies should focus on the implementation of high-quality CTs by fostering international cooperations and expanding knowledge on emerging COTs and MITs.

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