• Delia Cannizzaro, Adrian Safa, Andrea Bisoglio, Alice J M Jelmoni, Ismail Zaed, Maria Pia Tropeano, Nathan A Shlobin, Asra Al Fauzi, Abdul Hafid Bajamal, Tariq Khan, Angelos Kolias, Peter Hutchinson, and Franco Servadei.
• Humanitas Clinical and Research Center, IRCCS, Rozzano, Italy; Department of Biomedical Sciences, Humanitas University, Milan, Italy.
• World Neurosurg. 2022 Dec 1; 168: e666e674e666-e674.

ObjectiveIn 2019, we highlighted the disparities in scientific production between high-income countries (HICs) and low- to middle-income countries (LMICs) by emphasizing how scientific research was underrepresented in the latter. The present study aimed to investigate research productivity in neurosurgery of low-income countries (LICs) and LMICs for the years 2018-2020 and to compare it with the results of our previous study for 2015-2017.MethodsWe performed a retrospective bibliometric analysis using PubMed and Scopus databases to record all the reports published in 2018-2020 by investigators affiliated with neurosurgical departments in LICs and LMICs. The attribution of the study to LMICs was based on the presence of either the first author or the majority of authors.ResultsOur systematic search identified 486 studies reported by LICs and LMICs for full text examination in 12 journals. These articles represent 4.9% of all published neurosurgical articles, compared with 4.5% in the 2015-2017 study. India remained the country with the highest contribution, with a 17.1% increase in reports. Other countries, such as Nigeria and Philippines, also show an increased percentage of reports (from 0.9% to 3.7% and from 0.6% to 2.1%, respectively).ConclusionsThere is growing consensus in the neurosurgical scientific community that the dissemination and analysis of epidemiologic and clinical data from developing countries can provide guidelines and practical suggestions worldwide. However, our study shows that the number of neurosurgical articles published by low-income countries in 2018-2020 remained at approximately 5% of the total, resulting in a negative impact on the process of globalization.Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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