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Review
. 2023 May 28;15(5):e39600.
doi: 10.7759/cureus.39600. eCollection 2023 May.

Re-irradiation Using Stereotactic Radiotherapy: A Bibliometric Analysis of Research Trends

Ahamed Badusha Mohamed Yoosuf  1   2 , Muhammad Ajmal Khan  3 , Mohd Zahri Abdul Aziz  4 , Syahir Mansor  4   5 , Gokula Kumar Appalanaido  4   6 , Salem Alshehri  2   1 , Mamdouh Alqathami  2   1   7
Affiliations
Review

Re-irradiation Using Stereotactic Radiotherapy: A Bibliometric Analysis of Research Trends

Ahamed Badusha Mohamed Yoosuf et al. Cureus. .

Abstract

The objective of this research is to conduct a comprehensive bibliometric analysis using the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) to examine the current research topics and trends pertaining to stereotactic-based re-irradiation. A bibliometric search was conducted for re-irradiation-related literature published in English from the WoSCC database from 1991 to 2022, using VOSviewer to visualize the results. The extracted information comprises the publication year, overall citation count, average citation rate, keywords, and research domains. We conducted a literature review to identify trends in research on re-irradiation. A total of 19,891 citations were found in 924 qualifying papers that came from 48 different nations. The number of publications and citations has grown steadily since 2008 with the highest number of publications in the year 2018. Similarly, a substantial increase in the number of citations has increased since 2004 and the citation growth rate has been positive between 2004 and 2019 with a peak in 2013. The top authorship patterns were six authors (111 publications and 2498 citations), whereas the highest number of citations per publication was attained with an authorship pattern of 17 authors (C/P = 41.1). The collaboration patterns analysis showed that the largest proportion of publications emanated from the United States with 363 publications (30.9%), followed by Germany with 102 publications (8.7%), and France with 92 publications (7.8%). The majority of the analyzed studies were focused on the brain (30%), head and neck (13%), lung (12%), and spine (10%) and there have been emerging studies on the use of re-irradiation for lung, prostate, pelvic and liver utilizing stereotactic radiotherapy. The main areas of interest have changed over time and are now based on a multidisciplinary approach that integrates advanced imaging techniques, stereotactic treatment delivery, the toxicity of organs at risk, quality of life, and treatment outcomes.

Keywords: quality of life; radiotherapy toxicity; re-irradiation; stereotactic ablative radiotherapy fractionation; stereotactic radiotherapy (srt).

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Illustration of annual publication growth (A) and authorship pattern (B) from 1991 to 2022.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Illustration of top keywords (A) and and overly visualization of co-occurrence analysis visualization of keywords in WoSCC (B).
WoSCC - Web of Science Core Collection
Figure 3
Figure 3. Prevalence of keywords over time and the bubble indicates the year in which it was mostly used in the literature.
SBRT – stereotactic body radiotherapy; SABR – stereotactic ablative radiotherapy
Figure 4
Figure 4. Study collaboration between different countries in the field of re-irradiation.
Figure 5
Figure 5. Three-factor analysis of the relationship between keywords (right), journals (center), and countries (left).
Figure 6
Figure 6. Thematic evolution map of keywords from 1991 to 2022 for re-irradiation using stereotactic radiotherapy.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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