Muhammed Nezih KOÇ, Sait Ramazan GÜLBAY, Süleyman TAYGURT
Kocaeli Üniversitesi Sağlık Bilimleri Dergisi - 2026;12(3):191-199
Objective: The anaesthesia work area is an established reservoir for microbial contamination and a route of perioperative pathogen transmission, but its literature has not been mapped. This study described its size, growth, geography, collaboration, intellectual base and conceptual structure, and its evidence gaps. Methods: Scopus records combining anaesthesia and perioperative-setting terms with contamination and transmission terms (articles and reviews; English; 1990-2025) were retrieved on 24 July 2026 and screened in two stages. Relevance screening used two independent large language model assessors (Claude Opus 4.8, Anthropic) working from a common rubric, retaining records only when both agreed; the screen was validated against blinded human screening of 670 records (sensitivity 91.2%, specificity 99.7%, positive predictive value 97.4%). The intellectual base was re-estimated without author self-citations. Analyses used bibliometrix 5.4.1 and VOSviewer 1.6.21. Results: The corpus comprised 302 documents (268 articles, 34 reviews) in 120 sources by 1,281 authors from 37 countries, attracting 8,049 citations (mean 26.7, median 13.5). Output grew steadily, with 61% appearing from 2010 onward. One author (R.W. Loftus; 41 documents, 1,513 citations) and one country (United States, 149 documents) dominated, and international co-authorship reached only 6.6%. The intellectual base rested on one programme of intraoperative transmission research plus the 1995 propofol outbreak report; its four leading references kept the leading positions after author self-citations were removed, whereas the programme's later work did not. Conclusion: The field is coherent but narrowly based. Independent multicentre replication, trials with postoperative-infection endpoints and extension to under-studied settings are its clearest priorities.
