The 100 most-cited articles in WALANT hand surgery: A bibliometric and visualized analysis.

Abstract

This bibliometric analysis aimed to define important topics and developments across wide awake local anaesthesia no tourniquet (WALANT) hand surgery, an innovative ambulatory technique that gained popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Articles were searched and screened using the Web of Science core collection database. VOSviewer 1.6.18 and <i>bibliometrix</i> were used for analysis. In the initial search 419 articles were found. Between 1990 and 2023, 333 writers contributed to the top 100 most-cited articles published. The country with the highest number of published articles (20%) was Canada, followed by the USA (18%) and China (12%). Most articles were published in <i>Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery</i> (15%), <i>Hand Clinics</i> (14%) and the European and American volumes of <i>The Journal of Hand Surgery</i> (9% each). Eighty-two percent of articles had a Level of Evidence of III or V. High-quality randomized controlled trials and systematic reviews of WALANT are needed to broaden and enhance clinical practice and research.<b>Level of evidence:</b> V.