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. 2019 Jan 11:6:e6178.
doi: 10.7717/peerj.6178. eCollection 2019.

Artificial liver research output and citations from 2004 to 2017: a bibliometric analysis

Yan Li #  1 , Meizhi He #  1 , Ziyuan Zou  2 , Xiaohui Bian  1 , Xiaowen Huang  2 , Chen Yang  2 , Shuyi Wei  1 , Shixue Dai  3   4
Affiliations

Artificial liver research output and citations from 2004 to 2017: a bibliometric analysis

Yan Li et al. PeerJ. .

Abstract

Background: Researches on artificial livers greatly contribute to the clinical treatments for liver failure. This study aimed to evaluate the research output of artificial livers and citations from 2004 to 2017 through a bibliometric analysis.

Methods: A list of included articles on artificial livers were generated after a comprehensive search of the Web of Science Core Collection (from 2004 to 2017) with the following basic information: number of publications, citations, publication year, country of origin, authors and authorship, funding source, journals, institutions, keywords, and research area.

Results: A total of 968 included articles ranged from 47 citations to 394 citations with a fluctuation. The publications were distributed in 12 countries, led by China (n = 212) and the US (n = 207). There were strong correlations of the number of citations with authors (r 2 = 0.133, p < 0.001), and countries (r 2 = 0.275, p < 0.001), while no correlations of the number of citations with the years since publication (r 2 = 0.016, p = 0.216), and funding (r 2 < 0.001, p = 0.770) were identified. Keyword analysis demonstrated that with the specific change of "acute liver failure," decrease in "bioartificial livers" and "hepatocyte," and increase in "tissue engineering" were identified. The top 53 cited keyword and keyword plus (including some duplicates counts) were identified, led by bioartificial liver (405 citations) and hepatocyte (248 citations). The top 50 cited keywords bursts were mainly "Blood" (2004-2008), "hepatocyte like cell" (2008-2015), and "tissue engineering" (2014-2017). All keywords could be classified into four categories: bioartificial livers (57.40%), blood purification (25.00%), clinical (14.81%), and other artificial organs (2.78%).

Discussion: This study shows the process and tendency of artificial liver research with a comprehensive analysis on artificial livers. However, although it seems that the future of artificial livers seems brighter for hepatocyte transplantation, the systems of artificial livers now are inclined on focusing on blood purification, plasma exchange, etc.

Keywords: Artificial livers; Bibliometric analysis; Citations; Keyword.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Overview of article selection process.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Numbers of included articles (A) and the growth trends of countries (B) from 2004 to 2017.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Interactions between countries of the included articles.
Figure 4
Figure 4. Correlations between the number of citations and the number of funding (A), the number of years since publication (B), the number of countries (C), and the number of authors (D).
Figure 5
Figure 5. Network map of authors (A), co-cited authors (B), institutions (C), and keywords (D).
Figure 6
Figure 6. Growth trends of keywords on artificial livers from 2004 to 2017.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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