Knowledge Mapping of Immunotherapy for Hepatocellular Carcinoma: A Bibliometric Study

Abstract

BackgroundHepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignant tumors, and many patients are diagnosed with advanced disease. The treatment of advanced liver cancer has made significant strides in recent years, owing to the practice of immunotherapy drugs. Numerous studies have been published on immunotherapy for HCC; however, no relevant bibliometric study has been published. This study aims to gain a better understanding of the current situation and to identify potential new research directions by conducting a bibliometric analysis on immunotherapy for HCC.MethodsWe searched the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) for articles related to immunotherapy for HCC. Three software (VOSviewer, CiteSpace, and python) were primarily used to assess the contribution and co-occurrence relationships of various countries/regions, institutes, journals, and, authors as well as to identify research hotspots and promising future trends in this research field.ResultsA total of 1,641 English articles published between 2011 and 2020 were collected, with the number of articles increasing nearly every year. The majority of publications originated from China (n = 893, 54.42%), followed by the United States and Japan. The Sun Yat-sen University contributed the most publications (n = 97, 5.91%). Nakatsura Tetsuya (n = 26) and Llovet JM (n = 366) were ranked first in the top ten authors and co-cited authors. Cancer Immunology Immunotherapy was the most productive academic journal on immunotherapy for HCC [n = 46, 2.80%; impact factor (IF) 2020 = 6.9679]. Aggregation and identification of critical nodes in the co-cited network demonstrated a shift in the field of HCC immunotherapy. Initially, the hotspots were predominantly “glypican-3”, “cytokine-induced killer cells”, and “ny-eso-1”, while the emphasis has shifted in recent years to “landscape”, “camrelizumab”, “combination therapy”, and “immune score”.ConclusionIncreased attention has been paid to HCC with the advancement of immunotherapy. At the moment, the most active frontiers are focused on better understanding the immunological landscape of liver cancer, screening the population that can benefit from immunotherapy, and the clinical application of immune checkpoint inhibitors, particularly in combination with other therapeutic options (such as local therapy and targeted therapy).

Knowledge Mapping of Necroptosis From 2012 to 2021: A Bibliometric Analysis

“…Compared to traditional reviews, the bibliometric analysis provides a novel and objective insight into the evolving research foci and trends ( 24 ). Meanwhile, we used various bibliometric software to perform an analysis, which could provide richer results in multiple dimensions ( 24 , 104 ). This study will inform the public of the importance of necroptosis, provide scholars a whole picture of necroptosis research, and further serve as a comprehensive and objective guide for the future development of the necroptosis research field.…”

Mapping Knowledge Structure and Global Research Trends in Gout: A Bibliometric Analysis From 2001 to 2021

“…Figure 5C showed a visualization of keywords that co-occurred more than 5 times in the gout research. The size of the node was proportional to the frequency of keyword occurrences, and a thicker line between two nodes was associated with a higher frequency of their co-occurrence ( 14 , 15 ). A total of 846 keywords were divided into 6 groups.…”

“…Bibliometrics, a feasible method, can quantitatively and qualitatively analyze the scientific achievements, provide an objective and holistic overview, discover the spatial and temporal distribution of research status, identify high-impact articles, authors, and institutions, reveal research hotspots and trends, and ultimately contribute to the advancement of the research field ( 11 ). It has been widely used in medical fields such as orthopedics ( 12 ), COVID-19 ( 13 ), oncology ( 14 ), and rheumatology ( 15 ). Zhang et al ( 16 ) conducted bibliometrics research to discuss publication status and research hotspots in hyperuricaemia.…”

Emerging trends and hot spots in autoimmune thyroiditis research from 2000 to 2022: A bibliometric analysis

“…The top 11 co-citation clusters were shown in Figure 1B . In the timeline view, different colors of nodes on the same line indicated different years ( Figure 1C ) ( 30 ). Accordingly, the nodes that were closer to the right reflected the more recent references.…”

“…Therefore, CiteSpace can be used to predict the research trend of a certain discipline or field during a certain period ( 29 ). The CiteSpace parameters were set as follows: link retaining factor (LRF = 3), e for top N (e = 2), time span (2000–2022), years per slice, look back years (LBY = 23), links (strength: cosine, scope: within slices), selection criteria (g-index: k = 25), and minimum duration (MD = 1) ( 30 ). VOSviewer is a program for building and viewing bibliometric maps ( 31 ).…”