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. 2025 Feb 7;10(6):6147-6163.
doi: 10.1021/acsomega.4c10893. eCollection 2025 Feb 18.

Trends and Hotspots in Nanomedicine Applications for Pain: A Bibliometric Analysis from 1999 to 2024

Shuailei Wang  1 , Yumiao He  1 , Yuguang Huang  1
Affiliations

Trends and Hotspots in Nanomedicine Applications for Pain: A Bibliometric Analysis from 1999 to 2024

Shuailei Wang et al. ACS Omega. .

Abstract

Background: Pain, especially chronic pain, is a leading cause of individuals seeking medical attention and presents a significant public health challenge due to its widespread prevalence and associated healthcare costs. Nanomedicine has shown considerable potential in pain management research. However, there is a lack of comprehensive bibliometric and trend analyses that explore the current status, research hotspots, and future directions of nanomedicine applications in pain. Methods: To fill this gap, we analyzed English language publications related to nanomedicine and pain from the Web of Science Core Collection, spanning the period from January 1, 1999, to May 24, 2024. The analysis focused on publication trends, contributions by countries/regions, institutions, journals, research categories, prominent authors, key references, and keywords. Results: A total of 2370 papers were included. China leads in the number of published papers (785, 33.12%) and hosts numerous high-output institutions and funding agencies, followed by the USA. The International Journal of Pharmaceutics emerged as the leading journal in terms of publication volume. A clear interdisciplinary platform has been established between nanomedicine and the field of pain. "Nanoparticles" and "drug delivery" were identified as high-frequency keywords. The drug delivery systems for pain treatment were considered the main research hotspots, particularly for chronic pain. The keyword citation bursts indicate that the pain of biomarker monitoring is a future trend. Conclusions: The application of nanomedicine in pain has advanced rapidly. Increased funding and international collaboration are necessary with future potential to expand from pain treatment to monitoring and diagnosis.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing financial interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flowchart of the search process.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Annual and cumulative publications (A) and citation (B) on nanotechnology applications for pain research worldwide from 1999 to 2023.
Figure 3
Figure 3
(A) Changing trend of the annual publication quantity in the top 10 countries/regions from 1999 to 2023. (B) Geographic distribution map based on the total publications. (C) Cross-country/region collaboration visualization map. (D) Countries/regions citation overlay visualization map.
Figure 4
Figure 4
(A) Polar bar chart of counts, average citations, and H-index of the top productive 10 institutions. (B) Institutions with top 15 betweenness centrality. (C) Visualization map of institutions analysis. (D) Institutions overlay a visualization map.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Network (A) and density (B) visualization map of journals analysis. (C) Network visualization map of Journal cocited analysis. (D) Dual-map overlap of journals on nanotechnology applications for pain research.
Figure 6
Figure 6
(A) Network visualization map of authors coauthorship analysis. (B) Network visualization map of references cocitation analysis. Visualization of cluster view (C) and timeline view (D).
Figure 7
Figure 7
(A) Top 30 cocitation keywords with the highest frequency. Network (B), overlay (C), and density (D) visualization map of keywords co-occurrence analysis. (E) Visualization map of the timeline view.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Top 30 keywords with the strongest citation bursts.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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