Global research trends on the links between gut microbiota and cancer immunotherapy: A bibliometric analysis (2012-2021)

Abstract

BackgroundThere is a crosstalk between gut microbiota (GM) and cancer immunotherapy (CI). The purpose of this study is to use bibliometric analysis to identify the highly cited papers relating to GM/CI and explore the research status and development trends of the GM/CI research.MethodsA literature search regarding GM/CI publications from 2012 to 2021 was undertaken on July 4, 2022. The article titles, journals, authors, institutions, countries, total citations, keywords, and other information were extracted from the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) of Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC). The Bibliometrix of R package and VOSviewer were used for bibliometric analysis.ResultsA total of 665 papers were extracted. The number of papers has increased rapidly over the past decade, especially after 2018. The United States and China had the most publications and made great contributions to this field. Th5e Univ Texas MD Anderson Canc Ctr and Univ Paris Saclay were absolutely in the leading position in GM/CI. The most influential authors were Zitvogel L and Routy B. Frontiers in Immunology had the most publications and Science had the most total citations. Historical direct citation analysis explained the historical evolution in GM/CI. Highly cited papers and high-frequency keywords illustrated the current status and trends of GM/CI. Four clusters were identified and the important topics included the role of GM and antibiotics in CI, the methods of targeting GM to improve CI outcomes, the mechanism by which GM affects CI and the application of ICIs in melanoma. “Tumor microbiome”, “proton pump inhibitors” and “prognosis” may be the new focus of attention in the next few years.ConclusionThis study filtered global publications on GM/CI correlation and analyzed their bibliometric characteristics, identified the most cited papers in GM/CI, and gained insight into the status, hotspots and trends of global GM/CI research, which may inform researchers and practitioners of future directions.

Global research on the crosstalk between intestinal microbiome and colorectal cancer: A visualization analysis

“…The WoSCC is an important database for obtaining global academic resources, including various academic journals. With a stringent screening process based on Bradford’s law, the WoSCC’s Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-E) highlights the most reputable and noteworthy academic work in natural science ( Yang S. et al., 2022 ; Zyoud et al., 2022 ). Therefore, it was selected as the data source.…”

“…Bibliometrics is an interdisciplinary science that quantifies all knowledge bearers utilizing mathematics and statistics, which realizes the visualization of hot topics and knowledge evolution in specific research fields, and has been used successfully in medical studies. Many cancer-related issues have been thoroughly investigated using bibliometrics, such as high-cited papers in cancer immunotherapy ( Liu et al., 2022 ), immunotherapy for hepatocellular carcinoma ( Shen et al., 2022 ) and CRC ( Ma et al., 2022 ), links between IM and cancer ( Zyoud et al., 2022 ), and links between IM and cancer immunotherapy ( Yang S. et al., 2022 ). In the past decade, clinical and animal studies on the link between IM and CRC have steadily increased.…”

Global knowledge mapping and emerging trends in research between spasmolytic polypeptide-expressing metaplasia and gastric carcinogenesis: A bibliometric analysis from 2002 to 2022

“…For researchers in this age of information explosion and technology, it is essential to keep up with the latest trends in the research field. In bibliometrics, keyword co-occurrences can reflect the focus in specific areas, overlay and timeline views can illustrate the evolution of new hotspots, and the emerging topics in the discipline can be identified through reference clusters and citation bursts (Liu et al, 2022;Zhang et al, 2022a;Yang et al, 2022). As part of this study, we examined reference timeline and burst (Figures 5C, D), keyword overlay, cooccurrence, timeline, burst (Figures 6A-C), KEGG (Figure 7B), and GO annotations (Figure 7C) to evaluate the hotspots and frontiers of SPEM-GC research.…”

The Gut Microbiome and Metastatic Renal Cell Carcinoma

“…It is therefore not surprising that given the successes in establishing associations between the gut microbiome and several diseases, subsequent studies have sought to determine its influence in the context of cancer. Interestingly, and despite the increased interest in examining the role of the microbiome in cancer seen in recent years, there are historical reports dating back to 1868 suggesting a link between the presence of certain microbes and oncogenesis [ 11 , 30 , 31 ]. Among the microbes reported to have a role in carcinogenesis are viruses such as the Epstein–Barr, human papilloma, and hepatitis viruses and bacteria such as Helicobacter pylori [ 32 , 33 ].…”

“…Moreover, the preponderance of preclinical and clinical evidence now suggests that gut dysbiosis plays key role in the natural history of a number of malignancies including colorectal cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma, melanoma and breast cancer [ 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 ]. Furthermore, the influence of the gut microbiome has been investigated in the setting of different systemic therapy approaches, such as chemotherapy, stem cell transplantation and immunotherapy, where it has been shown to modulate toxicity and treatment response [ 31 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 ]. Particularly, significant efforts have been dedicated to investigating the association between the gut microbiome and immune-related adverse events (irAEs).…”