Artificial Intelligence in Orthopaedics: Global Output, Investment Impact and Research Trends- A Bibliometric and Correlation Analysis

Abstract

Introduction: Artificial intelligence revolution promises several potential applications in every facet of healthcare delivery, examples of which include precision medicine, improved disease treatment, reduction in diagnostic error, patient’s data analytics, medical robotics, patients’ triaging, personalized care, virtual assistance, drug discovery and biomedical research. The field of orthopaedics is broad and technology driven, and researchers continue to explore the use of artificial intelligence in orthopaedics. The objective of this present study is to assess the current global output of AI-related publications in orthopaedics, and how this has been impacted by the overall investment in artificial intelligence. Methods: The literature search for the study was conducted in PubMed on 10th August, 2025 using pubmedR. The search strategy used was “Artificial intelligence* OR Machine learning[Title/Abstract]) AND Orthopaedic* AND english[LA] AND Journal Article[PT] AND 2000:2025[DP]", and all retrieved data were downloaded into the R environment for data manipulation and analysis using bibliometrix and folium packages. Results: The total document initially retrieved from the search query in PubMed was 2822. Following data cleaning, removal of duplicates and exclusion of publications with important missing data, 2604 document was included for further analysis. United States of America, China and Canada are the top three countries with the highest number of publications. There is a significant correlation between the amount of investment in artificial intelligence and the number of artificial intelligence-related publications (r=0.8; CI: 0.71 -0.93; P < 0.0001). Deep learning technique is the most commonly used machine learning techniques in orthopaedics. Conclusion: There is a growing interest in maximizing the potentials of artificial intelligence in orthopaedic practice, and this is mainly driven by the investment drive in artificial intelligence by the global powers.