Techniques, Outcomes, and Reporting Gaps in Oncoplastic Breast-Conserving Surgery: A Bibliometric and Text-Mining Analysis of Two Decades (2005–2024)

Background Oncoplastic breast-conserving surgery (OBCS) has expanded rapidly, but how techniques and outcome domains are represented has not been systematically mapped. We combined bibliometric analysis with dictionary-based text mining to characterise technique-specific outcome reporting in OBCS research (2005–2024). Methods Records from Web of Science and Scopus were deduplicated and screened against a predefined eligibility definition (n = 1,371). A technique dictionary (50 terms) and an outcome dictionary (40 terms), each in eight families, were applied to titles, abstracts, and author keywords (corpus coverage 94.7% and 84.0%). For each technique family we calculated the proportion of records also mentioning each clinical outcome family; temporal change across three periods and co-citation structure were assessed. Results Annual output rose from 9 records (2005) to 136 (2024), compound annual growth rate 15.36%. Among 467 records mentioning both a primary technique family and a clinical outcome, reporting differed by technique: local glandular reshaping co-occurred most often with aesthetic outcomes (82.0%) and chest-wall perforator flaps with complications (70.1%). At the outcome-family level, oncological and margin-related domains were less prominent (14.0–33.6%), whereas no individual hard oncological or margin endpoint exceeded 25%. Over time, aesthetic mentions declined (56.3% to 43.3%) while complication (35.8% to 50.3%) and patient-reported mentions (13.8% to 29.4%) rose; oncological and margin mentions remained near 25%. Co-citation analysis resolved three clusters: oncological foundations, classification and synthesis, and technique development. Conclusions OBCS reporting shows persistent, technique-specific unevenness, with oncological and margin outcomes comparatively underrepresented. More balanced reporting could improve comparability of the evidence base.