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Developing Trends and Core Knowledge in Posterior Cruciate Ligament Research: A Bibliometric and Visualized Analysis


 Background: The Posterior Cruciate Ligament (PCL) has important research value and broad application prospects in sports medicine. This study provides information on the present status, worldwide trends, evolutionary path and frontier research hotspots in this field. Methods: Publications from 1971 to 2021 were obtained from the Web of Science database and analyzed using VOSviewer and CiteSpace software. Results: there is an increasing trend in the relative research interests and the number of publications per year globally. The research institution with the highest documents and citations was the University of Pittsburgh. The United States showed a dominant position in publication outputs, followed by China and South Korea. Leading researchers, their cooperative relationships, and their scientific masterpieces have been identified. Arthroscopy has published the most papers in this field, followed by Knee Surgery Sports Traumatology Arthroscopy and American Journal of Sports Medicine. The publications can be divided into eight clusters: “Total knee arthroplasty”, “PCL reconstruction”, “Injury and rehabilitation”, “Anatomy and diagnosis” and “Functional assessment and etiology”. A cluster of citation keywords showed that “tibial slope” is the new research focus in the field. Conclusions: The publications about PCL research would remain in a high level of relevance for the future, based on the current global trends. Double bundle PCL reconstruction is the preferred surgical method for most PCL complex injuries. Its surgical techniques and postoperative management are making continuous progress, with doctors paying more attention to rapid postoperative recovery and improvement of patient satisfaction. Bibliometrics analysis enables us to accurately identify scholars, institutions, and journals with great academic influence in the vast and miscellaneous literature. This helps us quickly understand the current development and future research trend of the field.