SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Med.
Sec. Intensive Care Medicine and Anesthesiology
Hotspots and Frontiers in Chronic Postoperative Pain: A Bibliometric Analysis and Review(2004-2025)
Lingqin Zhou
Lingling Ren
Guanglan Chen
Xiangcheng Hu
The Second People's Hospital of Lishui, Lishui, China
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Abstract
Background: Surgery is a common cause of chronic pain. Current treatments for postoperative chronic pain yield suboptimal outcomes, with slow clinical progress. Methods: This study employed bibliometric analysis of chronic postoperative pain (CPSP)-related literature published between January 1, 2004, and August 5, 2025, using the Web of Science and Scopus databases. A total of 1,211 eligible English articles and reviews were screened, analyzing publication trends, countries/regions, institutions, authors, journals, and keywords. Results: From 2004 to 2025, annual publications in CPSP showed an upward trend, with the United States, China, Canada, and Denmark being the top publishing countries. Keyword analysis revealed "risk factor," "chronic postoperative pain," and "pain management" as research hotspots. Highly cited authors and journals were predominantly concentrated in North America and Europe. Conclusion: CPSP research is expanding, yet effective treatment options remain scarce. Future studies should enhance multidisciplinary collaboration to deepen understanding of CPSP pathogenesis and develop more effective interventions.
Summary
Keywords
Bibliometrics, Chronic Postoperative Pain, hotspots, Pathogenesis, review
Received
22 October 2025
Accepted
21 January 2026
Copyright
© 2026 Zhou, Ren, Chen and Hu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Xiangcheng Hu
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