Background Breast reconstruction refers to the rebuilding of a woman's breast using autologous
tissue or prosthetic material to form a natural-looking breast. It is increasingly
offered to women undergoing mastectomy for breast cancer. However, there is no systematic
analysis available for the expanding area of research on breast reconstruction.
Methods A bibliometric method was used to obtain a view of the scientific production about
breast reconstruction by data extracted from the Institute for Scientific Information
(ISI). Specific parameters were retrieved from the ISI. Articles about breast reconstruction
were analyzed to obtain a view of the topic's structure, history, and document relationships
using HistCite software. Trends in the most influential publications and authors were
analyzed.
Results The number of articles was constantly increasing. Most highly cited articles described
the methods of flap construction in the surgery. Other highly cited articles discussed
the psychological or emotional aspects of breast reconstruction, skin sparing mastectomy,
and breast reconstruction in the irradiated breast.
Conclusions This was the first breast reconstruction scientometric analysis, representing the
characteristics of papers and the trends of scientific production. A constant increase
in the number of breast reconstruction papers and also the increasing number of citations
shows that there is an increasing interest in this area of medical science. It seems
that most of the research in this field is focused on the technical aspects of surgery.
Keywords
Mammaplasty - Bibliometrics - Historiography
