Characterization of global research trends and prospects on platinum-resistant ovarian cancer: a bibliometric analysis

Abstract

Background: In the last decades, growing attention has been focused on identifying effective therapeutic strategies in the orphan clinical setting of women with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer (PROC), generating thousands of original articles. However, the literature involving bibliometric analysis of PROC has not been published yet.

Objective: This study hopes to gain a better understanding of the hot spots and trends in PROC by conducting a bibliometric analysis, as well as identify potential new research directions.

Methods: We searched the Web of Science Core Collection (WOSCC) for PROC-related articles published between 1990 and 2022. CiteSpace 6.1.R2 and VOS viewer 1.6.18.0 were primarily utilized to evaluate the contribution and co-occurrence relationships of various countries and regions, institutes, and journals and to identify research hotspots and promising future trends in this research field.

Results: A total of 3,462 Web of Science publications were retrieved that were published in 671 academic journals by 1135 authors from 844 organizations in 75 countries and regions. The United States was the leading contributor in this field, and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center was the most productive institution. Gynecologic Oncology was the most productive journal, while the Journal of Clinical Oncology was the most cited and influential. Co-citation cluster labels revealed the characteristics of seven major clusters, including synthetic lethality, salvage treatment, human ovarian-carcinoma cell line, PARP inhibitor resistance, antitumor complexes, folate receptor, and targeting platinum-resistant disease. Keywords and references burst detection indicated that biomarkers, genetic and phenotypic changes, immunotherapy, and targeted therapy were the most recent and most significant aspects of PROC research.

Conclusion: This study conducted a comprehensive review of PROC research using bibliometric and visual techniques. Understanding the immunological landscape of PROC and identifying the population that can benefit from immunotherapy, especially in combination with other therapeutic options (such as chemotherapy and targeted therapy), will continue to be the focal point of research.

Keywords: Citespace; VOSviewer; bibliometrics analysis; ovarian cancer; platinum-resistant.

Figure 1

Flow chart of literature inclusion and exclusion.

Figure 2

Annual frequency of publications in the field of platinum-resistant ovarian cancer.

Figure 3

Cooperation map of country/region (A) Country/region co-occurrence network. (75 nodes and 385 connection lines emerged. Node and line size represent the number of publications from a country/region and the cooperative relationship in the country/region, respectively. Red nodes indicate that publications of the country/region have a citation or frequency burst. Connecting lines of different colors represent different years. Blue ellipse indicates a burst in the citation/frequency of country/region.) (B) Number of publications for top 20 countries/regions. (C) The cooperation relationships of countries or regions.

Figure 4

Cooperation map of Institute. (A) Institute co-occurrence network. (844 nodes and 1670 connection lines emerged. Node and line size represent the number of publications from an institute and the cooperative relationship in institute, respectively. Red nodes indicate that publications of the country/region have a citation or frequency burst. Connecting lines of different colors represent different years. Red rectangles show a burst in the citation/frequency of institute.) (B) Number of publications for top 20 Institutes. (C) Top 25 Institutes with the Strongest Citation Bursts. (Blue bars and red bars mean that some keywords are cited frequently in a certain period).

Figure 5

The dual-map overlay of journals related to platinum-resistant ovarian cancer research. (Notes: The citing journals were at left, the cited journals were on the right, and the colored path represents citation relationship. In the citing map, the more papers the journal publishes, the longer the vertical axis of the ellipse, and the greater the number of authors, the longer the horizontal axis of the ellipse.).

Figure 6

(A) Cluster view of co-cited references in platinum-resistant OC research. (B) Top 25 co-cited references with the Strongest Citation Bursts. (Blue bars and red bars mean that some keywords are cited frequently in a certain period).

Figure 7

Keywords Map (A) Keywords co-occurrence network and clusters in platinum-resistant research (n≥10, relevance score ≥0.081, contains 641 keywords, 6 clusters and 42107 links.) Notes: The size of node and word reflects the co-occurrence frequencies, the link indicate the co-occurrence relationship, and the same color of node represent the same cluster. (B) The density map of keywords in PROC research. Notes: The size of word, the size of round, and the opacity of yellow is positively related to the co-cited frequency. It can find the high-frequency co-occurrence terms, which reveal the hotspots in a specific research field. (C) Top 50 keywords with the Strongest Citation Bursts. Notes: Blue bars and red bars mean that some keywords are cited frequently in a certain period. (D) The timeline view of co-citation clusters. Notes: Visualization of the keyword’s co-citation network time map (1990–2022). In this time map visualization, for each cluster, nodes are organized by their year of publication on horizontal lines. The 2019–2022-time frame permits identifying the latest and most active co-cited clusters.