Surgical Site Infection Prevention Research: A Bibliometric Analysis of the Top 50 Highly Cited Articles

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the 50 most cited research articles on preventing surgical site infections to identify trends and gaps in the field.

Contribution

The study provides a bibliometric overview of high-impact research on surgical site infection prevention, highlighting trends and evidence quality.

Findings

Retrospective cohort studies dominate the literature on surgical site infection prevention.

General and orthopedic surgery are the most studied specialties in this area.

Despite global attention, randomized controlled trials remain underrepresented in the field.

Abstract

Surgical site infections remain a major concern in modern surgical practice, as they are among the most frequent postoperative complications and place a substantial burden on patients and healthcare systems worldwide. Through a bibliometric analysis, this study examined the 50 most highly cited publications addressing surgical site infection prevention, aiming to describe research trends, dominant study designs, involved specialties, and the overall strength of the available evidence. A comprehensive search of the Web of Science Core Collection was performed in March 2025 using predefined terms related to surgical site infection and preventive strategies. Following the screening of 2,728 records, the top 50 most cited articles were selected for analysis. Bibliographic characteristics and study-level variables, including study design, level of evidence, specialty, and reported outcomes, were independently extracted by two reviewers, and descriptive analyses were conducted. The included publications demonstrated a predominance of retrospective cohort studies, with most articles classified as level two evidence. General surgery and orthopedic surgery were the most frequently represented specialties. Research output peaked during the 2010s, a period that included a higher proportion of controlled trials but also underscored the ongoing challenges of conducting large-scale interventional studies. Overall, this analysis highlights substantial scholarly interest in surgical site infection prevention while revealing a continued shortage of randomized studies despite a sustained global attention to this topic.

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