An Analysis of Publications on Cervical Plexus Blocks

Abstract

Bibliometric analysis provides measures of the quality and quantity of researches undertaken by departments/individuals and indicates countries’ contribution toward scientific development. The aim of this bibliometric study is to analyze scientific publications on cervical plexus blocks. Institute for Scientific Information (ISI)/Web of Knowledge Science was used for the analysis. A retrospective search was performed using the terms “cervical plexus block (CPB),” “superficial-CPB,” “intermediate-CPB,” “deep-CPB,” “regional anesthesia in CPB,” and “loco-regional anesthesia in CPB”. We further analyzed these results by the “analyze” function of the software in terms of number of papers from each country, type of documentation, number of publications per year, name of journals, and authors. The number of citations to published works was also calculated by using the citation function of the same software. Two hundred sixty papers were found related to cervical plexus block. The biggest contribution was from the USA (14.61%). The acceleration of the publications began in 2004. But there were three sharp declines in 2007, 2014, and 2016, respectively, after the acceleration in publications. CPBs were most frequently employed for carotid endarterectomy. Other indications for CPB application were otoplasty, thyroid, and parathyroid surgery (for analgesia and/or anesthesia) and recently perioperative analgesia during cervical spine surgery; but the number of publications on these topics is very limited.