Global trends in research of fibroblasts associated with rheumatoid diseases in the 21st century: A bibliometric analysis

Abstract

BackgroundRheumatoid Diseases (RDs) are a group of systemic auto-immune diseases that are characterized by chronic synovitis, and fibroblast-like synoviocytes (FLSs) play an important role in the occurrence and progression of synovitis. Our study is the first to adopt bibliometric analysis to identify the global scientific production and visualize its current distribution in the 21st century, providing insights for future research through the analysis of themes and keywords.MethodsWe obtained scientific publications from the core collection of the Web of Science (WoS) database, and the bibliometric analysis and visualization were conducted by Biblioshiny software based on R-bibliometrix.ResultsFrom 2000 to 2022, a total of 3,391 publications were reviewed. China is the most prolific country (n = 2601), and the USA is the most cited country (cited 7225 times). The Center of Experimental Rheumatology at University Hospital Zürich supported the maximum number of articles (n = 40). Steffen Gay published 85 records with 6263 total citations, perhaps making him the most impactful researcher. Arthritis and Rheumatism, Annals of Rheumatic Diseases, and Rheumatology are the top three journals.ConclusionThe current study revealed that rheumatoid disease (RD)-related fibroblast studies are growing. Based on the bibliometric analysis, we summarized three important topics: activation of different subsets of fibroblasts; regulation of fibroblast function; and in vitro validation of existing discoveries. They are all valuable directions, which provide reference and guidance for researchers and clinicians engaged in the research of RDs and fibroblasts.

Visualization of the relationship between macrophage and wound healing from the perspective of bibliometric analysis

“…44 Moreover, in comparison to other bibliometric studies that analysing the global research trend on macrophage involved diseases, the association between macrophage and wound healing is an area that has received much attention. For example, one bibliometric study by Wang et al, 22 has investigated the publications on macrophage-related diabetes between 2000 and 2022. A total of 1272 papers were included and the quantity of publications peaked at 132 in 2021.…”

“…13,14 As more and more open-source bibliometric tools such as CiteSpace, 15 VOSviewer, 16 bibliometrix R-package 17 and HistCite, 18 become available, it has been widely used in many biomedical domains. Take macrophage as an example, multiple bibliometric studies have scrutinized the global publication trend and emerging focus in the field of tumour-associated macrophage, 19 perivascular macrophages, 20 macrophages associated with acute lung injury, 21 macrophage-related diabetes 22 and so on. Furthermore, in the field of wound healing, Niu and colleagues have collected 1225 documents related to extracellular vesicles in wound healing by using bibliometric approach.…”

The role of apoptosis in spinal cord injury: a bibliometric analysis from 1994 to 2023

“…It is a powerful tool for analyzing possible trends in scientific archives and identifying critical hotspots via exploring the characteristics of literatures and databases ( Huang et al, 2023b ). Bibliometric analysis has been utilized in various medical fields, such as trauma, rheumatism, and endocrinology ( Huang et al, 2023a , b ; Zhu et al, 2023 ). However, it remains a lack of bibliometric view on the field of apoptosis and SCI.…”

Bibliometric analysis of the top 100 most cited articles on Th17/Treg balance and rheumatoid arthritis

“…Bibliometrics can aid in understanding how a field has developed by obtaining detailed information about authors, journals, countries, organizations, keywords, references, etc [ 10 ]. Bibliometrics has been widely used in medicine and more recently in the field of RA [ [11] , [12] , [13] ].…”