Tropeano, Maria PiaSpaggiari, RiccardoIleyassoff, HernanMabunda, Delisile J. D.Anania, Carla D.Costa, FrancescoServadei, Franco2020-12-012020-12-0120201878-87501878-8769https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wneu.2020.06.131https://hdl.handle.net/11454/61880OBJECTIVE: Traumatic spinal injury (TSI) is a global health issue contributing to morbidity and mortality, especially in low- and middle-income countries. the aim of this study is to compare the epidemiological estimates of TSI with the corresponding amount of published papers for different regions. METHODS: A bibliometric analysis was performed by collecting the number of publications concerning TSI from the PubMed database. Results were sorted according to the different geographical World Health Organization regions. A "publication-to-volume ratio" was obtained by comparing the average number of documents per year with the number of TSI cases across each region. RESULTS: A total of 2304 articles were detected from 2008 to 2018. the major publishing regions were North America (AMR-US/Can: 843 articles, 36.6%) and Europe (EUR: 833, 36.2%), then Western Pacific (WPR: 410, 17.8%), Eastern Mediterranean (EMR: 73, 3.2%), South-East Asia (SEAR: 71, 3.1%), Latin America (AMR-L: 55, 2.4%), Africa (AFR: 19, 0.8%). the United States is the most publishing country in AMR-US/Can (86.0%), and Germany in EUR (22.4%). in 2018, EUR published 36.6% of papers versus AMR-US/Can 26.5% and WPR 25.7%, thanks to an increase in Chinese publications. the highest publication ratios of 4.63 and 2.68 were found for AMR-US/Can and EUR, respectively. the other were EMR (0.22), WPR (0.18), AMR-L (0.07), SEAR (0.03), and AFR (0.01). CONCLUSIONS: A marked divide is currently found between countries with a high burden of TSI and those where there is most research interest, estimated as amount of publications. Data demonstrate the need for increased inclusiveness in guidelines generation from high-income countries including collection and analysis from low- and middle-income countries.en10.1016/j.wneu.2020.06.131info:eu-repo/semantics/closedAccessGlobal neurosurgeryPublic healthResearchSpinal cordTraumatic spinal injuryArticle142E117E125WOS:0005764593000142-s2.0-8508853492332592959Q2Q3