Endometrial cancer: mapping the global landscape of research

Abstract

Background: From a global viewpoint, endometrial cancer belongs to the most common female cancers. Despite the heavy burden of diseases and numerous unanswered questions, no detailed pictures of the global structure of endometrial cancer research are available so far. Therefore, this malignancy was reviewed using the New Quality and Quantity Indices in Science (NewQIS) protocol.

Methods: Using NewQIS, we identified endometrial carcinoma related research published in the Web of Science from 1900-2015 (P1) and from 2016-2020 (P2). Item analysis was performed with regard to research activity. Also, semi-qualitative aspects and socio-economic benchmarks were visualized using density equalizing mapping.

Results: In total, 9,141 from 1900-2015 and 4,593 from 2016-2020 endometrial cancer related studies were identified with the USA having the largest numbers of publications, citations, institutions, as well as the highest country-specific h-Index concerning endometrial cancer research in both periods. In contrast to other fields of cancer research, the two East Asian countries Japan and China followed concerning total research activities until 2015. From 2016 until 2020, China was found in short distance to the USA and was ranked second. In the socio-economic analysis, European countries were in prominent positions. Greece published 579.83 endometrial carcinoma-related articles per billion US-$ GDP, Finland (527.29), Sweden (494.65), Israel (493.75), and Norway (367.85) followed in the ranking. Density equalizing mapping visualized that large parts of Africa, Asia and South America with a high burden of disease played almost no visible role in the endometrial cancer research activities.

Conclusions: Endometrial cancer research activity is continuously increasing from a global viewpoint. However, the majority of original articles is published by authors based in high-income countries. Together with the finding that the research field of public health does only play a minimal role, our study points to the necessity that global health aspects should be introduced to endometrial cancer research.

Keywords: Density equalizing mapping; Endometrial carcinoma; Socio-economic analysis.

Fig. 1

Chronological development. P1 period from 1900–2015, P2 period from 2016–2020. a Number of published items. b Average number of authors per publication

Fig. 2

Density equalizing map projection of absolute numbers. Number of endometrial cancer publications per country in the period P1 = from 1900–2015 (a) and period P2 = period from 2016–2020 (b). Number of citations per country in the period P1 from 1900–2015 (c) and period P2 = period from 2016–2020 (d)

Fig. 3

Relative proportions of number of the ten most productive countries in five year intervals from 1981 to 2020

Fig. 4

Density equalizing map projection of endometrial cancer citation parameters. Citation rate per country (threshold = 30 articles) in the period P1 = from 1900–2015 (a) and period P2 = period from 2016–2020 (b). Modified (country-specific) h-Index per country in the period P1 from 1900–2015 (c) and period P2 = period from 2016–2020 (d)

Fig. 5

Density equalizing map projection of the ratio (Q1) of the number of endometrial cancer publications and population of the publishing countries in million inhabitants (World Factbook), classification of socio-economic status (World Bank) in the period P1 from 1900–2015 (a) and period P2 = period from 2016–2020 (b). Density equalizing map projection of the ratio (Q2) of the number of endometrial cancer publications and GDP in 1000 billion US-Dollar of the publishing countries (World Factbook), classification of socio-economic status (World Bank) in the period P1 from 1900–2015 (c) and period P2 = period from 2016–2020 (d)

Fig. 6

Density equalizing map projection of the ratio (Q3) of the number of endometrial cancer publications and GDP per Capita in billion US-Dollar of the publishing countries (World Factbook), classification of socio-economic status (World Bank) in the period P1 from 1900–2015 (a) and period P2 = period from 2016–2020 (b)

Fig. 7

Density equalizing map projection of the ratio of the number of endometrial cancer publications per number of annual new cases of endometrial cancer in each country in the period P1 from 1900–2015 (a) and period P2 = period from 2016–2020 (b). Threshold of at least 30 endometrial cancer articles

Fig. 8

International network on endometrial cancer research

Fig. 9

Subject areas of endometrial cancer research. a Relative proportion of the most assigned subject areas in 5-year intervals. b Proportion of the most assigned subject areas of the most publishing countries