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Traumatic Spine Injury: Which Discrepancy Between the Research Output and the Actual Burden of the Disease?

Authors :
Tropeano MP
Spaggiari R
Ileyassoff H
Mabunda DJD
Anania CD
Costa F
Fornari M
Sharif S
Zileli M
Park KB
Servadei F
Source :
World neurosurgery [World Neurosurg] 2020 Oct; Vol. 142, pp. e117-e125. Date of Electronic Publication: 2020 Jun 24.
Publication Year :
2020

Abstract

Objective: Traumatic spinal injury (TSI) is a global health issue contributing to morbidity and mortality, especially in low- and middle-income countries. The aim of this study is to compare the epidemiological estimates of TSI with the corresponding amount of published papers for different regions.<br />Methods: A bibliometric analysis was performed by collecting the number of publications concerning TSI from the PubMed database. Results were sorted according to the different geographical World Health Organization regions. A "publication-to-volume ratio" was obtained by comparing the average number of documents per year with the number of TSI cases across each region.<br />Results: A total of 2304 articles were detected from 2008 to 2018. The major publishing regions were North America (AMR-US/Can: 843 articles, 36.6%) and Europe (EUR: 833, 36.2%), then Western Pacific (WPR: 410, 17.8%), Eastern Mediterranean (EMR: 73, 3.2%), South-East Asia (SEAR: 71, 3.1%), Latin America (AMR-L: 55, 2.4%), Africa (AFR: 19, 0.8%). The United States is the most publishing country in AMR-US/Can (86.0%), and Germany in EUR (22.4%). In 2018, EUR published 36.6% of papers versus AMR-US/Can 26.5% and WPR 25.7%, thanks to an increase in Chinese publications. The highest publication ratios of 4.63 and 2.68 were found for AMR-US/Can and EUR, respectively. The other were EMR (0.22), WPR (0.18), AMR-L (0.07), SEAR (0.03), and AFR (0.01).<br />Conclusions: A marked divide is currently found between countries with a high burden of TSI and those where there is most research interest, estimated as amount of publications. Data demonstrate the need for increased inclusiveness in guidelines generation from high-income countries including collection and analysis from low- and middle-income countries.<br /> (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
1878-8769
Volume :
142
Database :
MEDLINE
Journal :
World neurosurgery
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
32592959
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wneu.2020.06.131