Thematic trends and knowledge structure map of sentinel lymph node biopsy for breast cancer: a bibliometric analysis from 2010 to 2019

Abstract

Background: Breast cancer is the leading cancer-related deaths among women. Although great progress has been made in clinical surgical treatment, it is still urgently needed to look for a treatment model with smaller wounds, lower damage, and a better prognosis. Sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) is a minimally invasive technique for breast cancer treatment, which can correctly assess the patients' condition, prognosis, and treatment response.Methods: We performed a PubMed-based bibliometric analysis to investigate publication trends of SLNB in breast cancer and determined the annual distribution of annual publication numbers, countries, authors, languages, journals, and high-frequency major Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms. Results:The results showed that the literature on SLNB in breast cancer has shown an upward trend, and stabilized with the most English literature in the past decade at least. The United States was the country with the most publications from 2010 to 2019. M Ahemd was the first-author who had published the most documents related to SLNB in breast cancer since 2010. The most high-frequency main MeSH words were breast neoplasms/pathology, breast neoplasms/surgery and SLNB.Conclusions: Through bicluster analysis, we divided the related articles of SLNB in breast cancer field from 2010 to 2019 into 4 clusters. Among them, indications for SLNB in breast cancer and detection of lymph node metastases and tracking methods for SLNB were considered to be current research hotspots, while assessment of axillary lymph nodes in neoadjuvant chemotherapy and application of SLNB was a potential hotspot.

Bibliometric analysis of an important diagnostic technique for the treatment of breast cancer

“…In this regard, we are pleased to highlight the remarkable findings published by Huo et al [2022] (10), entitled "Thematic trends and knowledge structure map of sentinel lymph node biopsy for breast cancer: a bibliometric analysis from 2010 to 2019". They examined a total of 4,152 articles published in 624 journals, discovered that in the previous ten years, researchers were very interested mainly in SLNB and sought to determine its benefits and drawbacks.…”

“…Huo et al [2022] ( 10 ) also demonstrated the wide range of benefits of SLNB, which justifies its current use in clinical practice. Notably, SLNB causes less damage to the nerves and lymphatic tissues.…”

“…With the help of a bibliometric analysis, Huo et al [2022] ( 10 ) have demonstrated that the SLNB may be regarded as a reliable, safe method that gives patients with early-stage breast cancer an accurate representation of their nodal metastases. Lastly, more studies are still needed to improve the comprehensive of treatment approaches and the development of techniques, thus, directly impacting in the quality of life of oncological patients, in which bibliometric studies can be one of these approaches among the current scenario of a massive number of daily publications.…”