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Review
. 2020 Oct 8;9(5):676-682.
doi: 10.1093/toxres/tfaa063. eCollection 2020 Sep.

A decade of toxicological trends: what the papers say

Phumzile Sikakana  1 , Ruth A Roberts  1
Affiliations
Review

A decade of toxicological trends: what the papers say

Phumzile Sikakana et al. Toxicol Res (Camb). .

Abstract

Here we look at popular trends and concepts in toxicology over the decade 2009-2019. The top 10 concepts included methodological approaches such as zebrafish and genomics as well as broader concepts such as personalized medicine and adverse outcome pathways. The total number and rank order for each of the top 10 were tracked year by year via PubMed with >9500 papers contributing to the analysis. The data revealed a slow upward trend in the number of papers across all the concepts from 260 in 2009 to >1700 in 2019. Zebrafish, genomics and personalized medicine remained in the top four slots since 2009 with zebrafish dominating the rankings over the entire decade. Genomics was a strong second until 2013 when it was displaced first by the microbiome in 2014 and secondly by personalized medicine in 2015. Other notable trends were the ascendancy of the microbiome and adverse outcome pathways and the descendancy of hormesis and the 3Rs (replacement, reduction and refinement of animals in testing). The observation that the top four slots have been static over the past 4 years suggests that new ideas are introduced and increase in popularity until they find their place in scientific culture. This may suggest that relatively new concepts such as artificial intelligence and microphysiological systems have yet to find their steady state in the rankings. Similarly, as a relatively new player in toxicology, the full impact of the human microbiome on drug efficacy and safety remains to be seen.

Keywords: genomics; personalized medicine; toxicology trends; zebrafish.

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Figures

Graphical Abstract
Graphical Abstract
Figure 1
Figure 1
Trends in toxicology publications from 2009 to 2019. Each of the top 10 concepts are ranked based on number of publications from most to least per year to track changes over time. The total number of publications in each concept was recorded from a PubMed search of each year between 2009 and 2019. The search terms for each concept included ‘OR and synonyms’ in quotation marks with ‘AND toxicology’ using the advanced search function to return all toxicologically relevant publications in each concept.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Trends in publications related to toxicology from 2009 to 2019. (a) Total number of publications in all concepts per year. (b) Concepts with >70 publications in 2019.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Number of Zebrafish publications 1973–2009.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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