Incidence of Neonatal Meningitis and the Premature Mortality in Eastern Sub-saharan Africa, From 1990 to 2023: A Global Burden of Diseases Study.

Scoliosis is a common three-dimensional spinal deformity that may occur in adolescent idiopathic scoliosis, adult spinal deformity, degenerative scoliosis, and certain syndromic or neuromuscular disorders (, ). With population aging and continued advances in spine surgery, the clinical focus of scoliosis research has broadened from deformity morphology and corrective treatment to long-term outcomes, complication risk, and perioperative management (). This shift is particularly relevant in adult spinal deformity and degenerative scoliosis, where osteoporosis and low bone mass may compromise vertebral strength and bone quality and thereby affect fixation stability, fusion outcomes, proximal junctional complications, and the risk of revision surgery (–). Bone quality has also gained increasing attention across different scoliosis subgroups. In adolescent idiopathic scoliosis, prior studies and systematic reviews have shown that some patients have reduced bone mineral density or persistent low bone mass, and the relationship between these abnormalities and curve progression remains an area of interest (, ). In adult spinal deformity and degenerative scoliosis, the relationship between osteoporosis-related structural fragility and mechanical complications, perioperative risk, and long-term outcomes is more direct. Accordingly, studies addressing bone health optimization, bone density and bone quality assessment, Hounsfield unit measurements, and other imaging-based surrogate markers have increased substantially (, , ). Together, these developments suggest that the intersection of scoliosis and osteoporosis has emerged as a clinically meaningful and increasingly distinct research area (). Despite this growing interest, the literature remains fragmented across multiple clinical subgroups, including adolescent idiopathic scoliosis, adult spinal deformity, degenerative scoliosis, neuromuscular disorders, and genetically related spinal deformities. In addition, the major contributors, international collaboration patterns, core journals, knowledge bases, and thematic evolution of this field have not been comprehensively characterized. Previous bibliometric studies have focused mainly on scoliosis overall or on selected subtypes, including adolescent idiopathic scoliosis, adult degenerative scoliosis, and early-onset scoliosis, whereas the research interface between scoliosis and osteoporosis remains insufficiently explored (–). A bibliometric mapping review is therefore well suited to characterize the broader knowledge landscape and emerging directions of this field ().