Global Practice vs. Research on Bariatric Surgery Over the Last Decade

Koray Bas, Serhan Derici, Tugba Arkan, Serkan Yener and Koray Atila

Department of General Surgery, Dokuz Eylul University Hospital, Turkey
Department of Internal Medicine, Dokuz Eylul University Hospital, Turkey

^*Correspondance to: Koray Bas 

 PDF  Full Text DOI: 10.25107/2474-1647.1201

Abstract

Background: Publishing scientific researches should be considered as important as practice in medicine. The aim of this study is to evaluate trends of scientific productivity comparing with practice of each IFSO-member countries on bariatric surgery over the last decade.Methods: The Thomson Reuters Web of Science was used to obtain numbers of bariatric surgeryrelated studies published by each IFSO-member countries in four certain time spans 2003-2004, 2008-2009, 2011-2012 and 2013-2014. Then each country’s publication rates per bariatric procedure were calculated for these time periods due to reports of IFSO in 2003, 2008, 2011 and 2013.Results: The highest number of publications and procedures on bariatric surgery were achieved by USA in all time spans. USA also has the largest volume of bariatric surgeons in 2003 and 2008. Then Brazil replaced the first rank for numbers of bariatric surgeons in 2011 and bariatric centers in 2013. In 2003-2004, the total number of bariatric surgery-related publications was 644 published by 26 IFSO-member countries and the total estimated number of bariatric procedure was 43,301 which performed by those countries. In 2013-2014, the total number of bariatric surgery-related publications was 4,026 which published by 56 IFSO-member countries and the total estimated number of bariatric procedure was 468,609 which performed by those countries.
Conclusion: We can roughly claim that global scientific productivity on bariatric surgery has not been increased in parallel increasing numbers of bariatric procedures and surgeons over the last decade. Our study should be a call that research efforts must be supported by governments or private institutions. In addition, creating and maintaining national and international "registry" systems, as IFSO, is essential to obtain reliable data.

Keywords

Bariatric surgery; Bibliometric analysis; IFSO

Cite the article

Bas K, Derici S, Arkan T, Yener S, Atila K. Global Practice vs. Research on Bariatric Surgery Over the Last Decade. Clin Surg. 2016; 1: 1201.