Research trends and hotspots in clinical trials of migraine in the past 20 years: bibliometric analysis

Abstract

Background: Migraine is a widespread, recurrent primary headache disorder primarily characterized by severe pulsatile headache, typically on one or both sides. It is often accompanied by nausea, vomiting, and hypersensitivity to sound and light. Despite the availability of multiple drugs for migraine management, the condition often becomes chronic due to untimely or irrational drug use, significantly distressing patients and increasing the burden on families and society. Over the past two decades, numerous clinical studies on migraine have been published. This study aimed to provide a comprehensive summary of the current status and trends of migraine clinical trials through bibliometric analysis.

Methods: We used visual network tools such as CiteSpace and VOSviewer to perform a knowledge graph analysis of publications related to migraine clinical trials extracted from the WoSCC.

Results: This study analyzed 1,129 articles published in 389 journals from 61 countries. The number of publications on migraine clinical trials has steadily increased from 2004 to 2023. The United States and Albert Einstein College of Medicine are the leading countries and institutions in this field, respectively. Richard B. Lipton is the most prolific author, making significant contributions to the research. The journal Headache has the highest number of publications and citations in this area. Keywords such as "efficacy," "RCT," "CGRP," "prophylaxis," "disability," "depression," "questionnaire," and "real-world effectiveness" received significant attention.

Conclusion: This study identified reliable research hotspots and provided directions for clinicians. The treatment of migraine continues to be challenging. Future trends may include continued growth in migraine classification, risk factor analysis, and comorbidity studies. Research on CGRP and epigenetics will advance the progress of precision medicine in the migraine field.

Keywords: CGRP; CiteSpace; VOSviewer; bibliometric analysis; clinical trials; migraine; precision medicine.

Figure 1

Flow chart of the literature retrieval process.

Figure 2

Trends in publications and citations per year from 2004 to 2024.

Figure 3

Countries/regions and institutions. (A) The network of co-authorship among countries/regions. (B) Collaborative visualization maps across countries/regions. (C) Co-authorship networks between institutions. (D) Alluvial flow diagrams showing the associations between countries/regions, institutions and journals.

Figure 4

Journals and authors. (A) Network visualization for journal cocitation analysis. (B) Dual map overlay of journals. (C) Network visualization of coauthoring analysis. (D) Author citation analysis overlay visualization.

Figure 5

The references were analyzed with CiteSpace. (A) Clustering of references based on the similarity between references, including #0 preventive treatment and #1 lectrical neuromodulation. (B) The top 25 references with strong citation bursts. Red bars indicate high citations for the corresponding year.

Figure 6

The references were analyzed with CiteSpace. (A) The keyword co-occurrence map. (B) A timeline view of keywords. (C) The top 25 keywords with the strongest citation bursts.