Research trends and prospects on brain metastasis from breast cancer: A bibliometric analysis

Abstract

Introduction: Brain metastasis is the terminal event of breast cancer with poor prognoses. Therefore, this article aimed to provide an updated summary on the development, hotspots, and research trends of brain metastasis from breast cancer based on bibliometric analysis.

Method: Publications on breast cancer with brain metastasis retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection. CiteSpace, VOSviewer, and other online bibliometric analysis platforms were used to analyze and visualize the result.

Result: In totality, 693 researchers from 3,623 institutions across 74 counties and regions published a total of 2,790 papers in 607 journals. There was a noticeable increase in publications in 2006. The United States was the dominant country with the most publications followed by China. University Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center was the most productive institution, while Dana Farber Cancer Institution was the most cited. Journal of Neuro-Oncology published the most papers, while Journal of Clinical Oncology ranked first based on cocited analysis. Nancy U. Lin was the most productive and cited author with high influence. There was a focus on basic research, clinical trials, local therapy, treatment optimization, and epidemiological studies regarding brain metastases from breast cancer. References focused on pathogenesis, prevention, treatment, and prognosis were cited most frequently, among which the clinical trial of novel treatment attracted most attention from researchers. Reference citation burst detection suggested that new therapies such as the novel tyrosine kinase inhibitor and antibody-drug conjugate may lead the research trends in the future.

Conclusion: High-income countries contributed more to the field of breast cancer with brain metastasis, while developing countries like China developed quickly. Furthermore, the success of novel therapies in recent years may lead to the new era of treatment of breast cancer with brain metastasis in the future.

Keywords: ADC (antibody-drug conjugate); TKI (tyrosine kinase inhibitor); bibliometric analysis; brain metastasis; breast cancer; research trend.

Figure 1

Flowchart of the process of publication selection.

Figure 2

The annual number of publications of breast cancer brain metastasis from 1 January 1992 to 7 October 2022.

Figure 3

Analysis of country based on the number of publications. (A) The number of publications per country. Countries with less publications were colored red, while countries with most publications were colored blue. Countries without publications in the related region were colored gray. (B) The annual publication number and trend of the 10 most productive countries. Different countries were represented by different colors, and the height of each color blot reflected the number of publications of a specific country in a specific year.

Figure 4

The connection among different countries in brain metastasis from breast cancer. Each country was represented by a fragment on the outer part of the circle. The area of the fragment is proportional to the number of publications of the correspondent country and the size of the arc to the strength of cooperation between two countries.

Figure 5

The co-occurrence cluster and production density of institutions. (A) cluster network analysis of institutions with at least five publications. The size of the node is proportional to the number of publications of a specific institution. The bigger the node, the more productive the institution. When two institutions occurred in the same publication for three times, there is a link between them. The width of the link represents the strength of co-occurrence between two institutions. Nodes and links in the same color belong to the same cluster, meaning the connections between these institutions are more closer according to the VOSviewer analysis. (B) The density map of institutions based on the number of publications. The labels of institutions in red area are the most productive institutions, while labels in the blue area are the less productive ones. From: VOSviewer.

Figure 6

Network of authors and cocited authors on breast cancer brain metastasis. Each tree-ring node represents an author. (A) Author network based on cooccurrence analysis. The size of node is proportional to the research output of the author. The color of the tree-ring node represents the publication history of the author. Red tree-ring nodes represent the author who published papers in the recent 2 years, while gray ones represent authors who were productive for a decade. Colorful nodes represent authors with continuous research output. (B) Cocited author network based on cocited analysis. The larger the node, the more times the author is cited. Nodes in warmer colors represent authors cited more recently, while nodes in cooler colors represent the opposite.

Figure 7

Co-occurrence analysis of keywords during 2006–2022. Lines between two keywords mean the two words coexisted for more than 10 times. The bigger the node, the more frequent it appears. The stronger the line, the more co-occurrences happen. At least 50 keywords are contained in one cluster. Additionally, keywords connected more closely are divided into the same cluster with the same color. From: VOSviewer.

Figure 8

Cluster timeline of keywords of breast cancer brain metastasis. Each tree-ring node represents a keyword. The size of the node is proportional to the time of the occurrence of the keyword. The color of the tree-ring node represents the occurrence history of the keyword. The label of clusters was produced by LLR analysis, and the colors represent different years.

Figure 9

Top 30 references with the strongest citation bursts. The blue line reflects the duration of the citation of the paper. The red segment reflects the duration of the burst.