Publication Trends in Bariatric Surgery: a Bibliometric Study

The interest in bariatric surgery has considerably increased in the scientific community in the last two decades. We present a bibliometric analysis of scientific publications in bariatric surgery focusing on the period 2010-2014. We used the Web of Science database as source of data. The main bibliometric indicators were applied in order to assess the increase of scientific production, the productivity of journals, authors, and countries. Bibliographic research retrieved 7860 papers for the period 2010-2014. The scientific production in bariatric surgery has an exponential distribution (r = 97.9 %). A total of 76.8 % (21,893/28,505) of authors signed one paper and 307 (1.1 %) signed ten or more. The two most prolific journals are Obesity Surgery and SOARD, responsible for 22 % of the publication. The largest contributors in absolute number of articles are the USA, the UK, and Italy, while Sweden, Norway, and Switzerland are the most prolific nations after adjustment for the number of inhabitants and prevalence of obesity. Bariatric surgery has been a field of intense research in the last 20 years. We observed a growing interest of non-surgical journals and an increasing participation of new countries. Nevertheless, latest trends suggest a saturation of scientific production in this field.