Functional popliteal artery entrapment syndrome: A brief overview of literature based on graph theory

We have read with interest and pleasure the article by Lavingia et al1Lavingia K.S. Dua A. Rothenberg K.A. Fredericson M. Lee J.T. Surgical management of functional popliteal entrapment syndrome in athletes.J Vasc Surg. 2019; 70: 1555-1562Abstract Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (6) Google Scholar on artery syndrome. Using phrase “popliteal syndrome” to perform a literature search PubMed, first publications found had been reported 1965. Normalizing number reports for total 1980s, some peaks are noticeable, relatively stable condition visible last decade (Fig). Going deeper inside analysis, lexical evaluation single words is possible network based graph theory (LENGTH), an approach we previously reported.2Coraci D. Giovannini S. Loreti C. Fusco Padua L. Management neuropathic pain: theory-based presentation review.Breast J. 2020; 26: 581-582Crossref (8) Scholar,3Coraci Low back review theory.Pain Pract. 20: 946-947Crossref (7) The results were exported, considering titles abstracts articles from past decade. exported file was analyzed calculate 30 most frequent consistent topic. A further analysis performed which included those words. Hence, built matrix able describe article–word relationships created support Gephi, version 0.9.2 (available at: www.gephi.org).4Bastian Heymann Jacomy Gephi: open source software exploring manipulating networks. International AAAI Conference Weblogs Social.2009: 361-362Google showed interesting peculiarities. First, term “rehabilitation,” mentioned al,1Lavingia absent, despite its potential usefulness. Furthermore, node distribution allowed visual association between For example, “pain” “claudication,” two common symptoms syndrome, located different parts graph.5Stager Clement Popliteal syndrome.Sports Med. 1999; 28: 61-70Crossref (42) This might indicate low frequency contemporary presence these Indeed, this occurred only articles. Additionally, provide information about importance network. lower values degree (number connections) closeness centrality (distance other nodes). Nevertheless, it presented high “betweenness” value, meaning level information. be related significance pain characterizing LENGTH represents new perspective analysis. It supports speculation current status topic sustains development studies.