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. 2025 Aug 9;16(1):1512.
doi: 10.1007/s12672-025-03287-4.

Research trends in cervical cancer brachytherapy: a bibliometric analysis

Shuilan Bao  1   2 , Yiren Wang  1   2 , Yiheng Hu  3 , Sheng Lin  4 , Youhua Wang  5 , Ke Yuan  6 , Yun Zhou  7 , Ping Zhou  8 , Haowen Pang  9 , Zhengyi Zuo  10
Affiliations

Research trends in cervical cancer brachytherapy: a bibliometric analysis

Shuilan Bao et al. Discov Oncol. .

Abstract

Background: Cervical cancer (CC) was a significant gynecological malignancy. Brachytherapy (BT) has found extensive application in cervical cancer radiotherapy, attributed to its remarkable features of high-precision positioning and highly conformal dose distribution. However, the field lacks a comprehensive bibliometric analysis. This research provides a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of cervical cancer brachytherapy trends and key topics, projecting future research directions.

Methods: A search was executed within the Web of Science Core Collection for publications on cervical cancer brachytherapy until 2025/6/23. Analytical tools were utilized to conduct in-depth bibliometric and visual analyses of the relevant online publications. The analyses covered multiple aspects, including countries/regions, institutions, authors, journals, and keywords.

Results: A total of 2924 articles were analyzed, showing an upward trend. The USA was the most productive country, with the Medical University of Vienna leading in publications. Brachytherapy had the highest number of publications. Tanderup K was the most prolific author, while Pötter R was the most frequently co-cited author. The latest high-frequency keywords included "cervical cancer," "interstitial brachytherapy," and "image-guided brachytherapy," among others. Through keyword co-occurrence-based cluster analysis, 10 distinct clusters were generated, effectively highlighting the research hotspots and frontiers in cervical cancer brachytherapy.

Conclusions: With medical imaging informatics advancing, research on cervical cancer brachytherapy has become increasingly profound. Recently, areas such as image-guided-adaptive-brachytherapy, effective biological dose, and radionecrosis have attracted significant research attention. Future research is expected to focus on developing and enhancing artificial intelligence (AI) tools to optimize brachytherapy treatment planning, aiming to benefit a larger number of cervical cancer patients.

Keywords: Bibliometric analysis; Brachytherapy; Cancer; Cervical cancer; Radiotherapy.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: As the research does not engage with human subjects, clinical interventions, or private health records, ethical approval from an institutional review board was not required. As this study analyzes non-sensitive, publicly available data that does not involve individual human subjects or private entities, formal informed consent from participants is not required Consent for publication: All authors confirm that they have no known conflicts of interest relating to the publication of this work and consent to publish. Clinical number: This study involves analyzing non-sensitive public data without clinical research elements, so a clinical number is not required. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Workflow of this study
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Visualization of publications trendsA Overall Statistics of Publications. B Annual trend chart of publications
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Visualization of countries/regions’ collaboration and publication trends. A Countries/regions network map. B Annual cumulative production trends of the top 10 countries/regions. C World map displaying the distribution of publications. D International cooperation of countries/regions
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Visualization of countries/regions’ collaboration and publication trends. A Countries/regions network map. B Annual cumulative production trends of the top 10 countries/regions. C World map displaying the distribution of publications. D International cooperation of countries/regions
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Overview of institutions. A Top 10 institutions by publication volume. B Network map of institution collaboration analysis
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Visualization of journal analysis. A Network map of journal analysis. B Network map of co-cited journals analysis. C The dual-map overlay of journals
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Visualization of journal analysis. A Network map of journal analysis. B Network map of co-cited journals analysis. C The dual-map overlay of journals
Fig. 6
Fig. 6
Visualization of the author’s analysis. A Network map of authors’ analysis. B Network map of co-cited authors analysis
Fig. 7
Fig. 7
Visualization of reference analysis. A Visual mapping of references co-occurrence. B The top 25 references with the strongest citation bursts by CiteSpace
Fig. 8
Fig. 8
Visualization of keyword analysis. A Visual mapping of keyword co-occurrence. B Visual mapping of keyword clustering. C The top 24 keywords with the strongest citation bursts by CiteSpace
Fig. 8
Fig. 8
Visualization of keyword analysis. A Visual mapping of keyword co-occurrence. B Visual mapping of keyword clustering. C The top 24 keywords with the strongest citation bursts by CiteSpace
Fig. 9
Fig. 9
Timeline visualization of the co-occurring keywords network
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