**1. Introduction**

The clinical application of dental implant rehabilitation represents consolidated effectiveness in the literature due to long-term predictability and high-level satisfactory functioning and aesthetics [1–4]. Titanium alloys are the most widely used biomaterials for dental implant fixtures due to their physical, chemical, and thermal properties, which produce the osseointegrating ability of the fixture placed to replace the natural teeth [2,5–12].

Recently, the use of zirconia as an implant material has become more prevalent due to its high aesthetic characteristics, particularly in the rehabilitation of the compromised anterior jaw area, where there is fine soft-tissue biotype and the metal sensibility of the patients [13–15].

In fact, the literature reports that the titanium ion dissolution related to the implant corrosion could alter the natural oral microbiome and the homeostatic functional balance of the oral tissues [16–20].

On the contrary, it has been shown in vitro that the zirconia surface can lead to a significant decrease in periodontal pathogen adhesion compared to the titanium surface [21], alongside similar bone–implant contact compared to the titanium fixture with an almost overlapping range [22].

Additionally, Scarano et al. reported in a rabbit study that zirconia implants had about 68.4% bone–implant contact with evidence of contact osteogenesis without fibrous tissue interposition [23].

Zirconia material is distinguished by its clear ivory appearance, which is very similar to the natural color of the teeth and is characterized by an intrinsic strength and physical resistance to the loading [24–26]; as a result, it has been introduced as a restorative material for dental crowns, bars, abutments, and specially designed drills and burs [26–34]. Therefore, zirconia has recently gained further attention in the scientific community by growing research activities to confirm the clinical effectiveness of zirconia as a dental implant material.

Although citations are not an infallible metric to determine whether research is beneficial to researchers and clinicians, citations and citation analysis can quantify an article's influence, author, subject of debate, country, journal, or a specialty [35,36]. Based on citation analysis, the bibliometric analysis aims to provide information about the trend in a research field and demonstrates its growth and development [37]; the number of citations received, researcher H-index, and journal impact factor are the most common bibliometric evaluation variables and considered as a scientific productivity score for the scientometric evaluation [38].

With the significant increase in the published articles on dental implants, recognizing trends and advances in a research field is critical and relevant to the needs of dental practitioners and researchers [39,40]. In this sense, bibliometric analysis is a useful tool for this purpose [41,42].

As far as we know, the trends and advances in zirconia dental implants have not been studied before; hence this study aimed to evaluate the bibliometric output of clinical research and co-authors in the field of zirconia dental implant rehabilitations.
