The Evolution and Future of Rhytidectomy Literature: A Bibliographic Study

Since Eugene Holländer performed the first rhytidectomy in 1901, face-lift surgery has dramatically transformed over 100+ years. Our objective was to assess conceptual themes and content evolution in the published rhytidectomy literature. A bibliometric rhytidectomy analysis was performed on English-language literature between the period of 1951 and 2017. Analyses included most productive authors, countries, journals, most-cited articles, and keywords. K-means clustering was used to discern trends in topics. A total of 1927 rhytidectomy abstracts were mined from the Scopus® bibliographic database over the period of 1951-2017. These abstracts originated from 500 different source publications and 3744 different authors. The annual growth rate of rhytidectomy literature is 6.87 articles/year. The most productive countries were the United States (856 publications), France (107 publications), and Brazil (67 publications). Between-country collaborations were rare. From 1995-2015, the recent literature centered on younger adults, surgical approaches, and complications. Older literature investigated surgical techniques, facial skin, aging, and lipectomy. Two distinct concept clusters were discovered: (1) surgical outcomes and techniques/approaches, and (2) study design. Bibliometric analyses are useful in understanding intellectual structure, gaps, and opportunities for knowledge advancement. The recent rhytidectomy literature is focused on new techniques/approaches, complications, and younger adults and is dominated by US-based clinicians.