A bibliometric analysis of inflammation and thyroid carcinoma: research trends and future perspectives

Abstract

Background and objectives: Thyroid carcinoma, one of the most prevalent endocrine malignancies, has witnessed a gradual increase in incidence in recent years. Accumulating evidence has demonstrated that inflammation plays a pivotal role in the pathogenesis, progression, and prognosis of thyroid carcinoma, with a significant association between certain malignancies and chronic inflammatory processes. This study conducts a bibliometric analysis of literature on inflammation and thyroid carcinoma over 24 years, aiming to identify trends and research dynamics. The findings are expected to deepen understanding of thyroid carcinoma mechanisms and guide new therapeutic strategies.

Methods: We used the advanced search function of the Web of Science Core Collection to systematically screen and curate articles on inflammation and thyroid carcinoma published between 2000 and 2024. Using Microsoft Excel 2019, we analyzed and visualized publication volume and growth trends. For co-occurrence and clustering analysis of countries, institutions, authors, journals, references, and keywords, we employed VOSviewer, CiteSpace, and the 'bibliometrix' package in R. Keyword visualization identified 10 major clusters, including sodium iodide symporter, total thyroidectomy, peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor, papillary thyroid microcarcinoma, therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals, zoological gardens, endoscopic thyroidectomy, mixed cryoglobulinemia, fine needle aspiration, and clinical evaluation. The most frequent keywords were cancer, thyroid cancer, and inflammation.

Results: We included a total of 1,441 articles published between 2000 and 2024, contributed by 8,326 authors from 2,054 institutions across 70 countries. These articles were published in 625 journals, encompassing 59,808 references and 6,340 keywords. The publication output demonstrated a consistent upward trend over the study period. Among the contributing nations, China emerged as the most prolific country in terms of publication volume. The leading institution was the University of Pisa in Italy. The most productive author was Antonelli, Alessandro, and the leading journal was Thyroid.

Conclusion: This bibliometric analysis shows that research on inflammation and thyroid carcinoma is a rapidly evolving field, marked by diverse themes and in-depth studies. Advances in technology and extensive research are expected to clarify how inflammation drives thyroid carcinoma initiation and progression. This deeper understanding will lead to new approaches in diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of thyroid carcinoma.

Keywords: CiteSpace; VOSviewer; Web of Science; bibliometric analysis; inflammation; thyroid carcinoma.

Figure 1

Depicts the literature screening process utilized in this study.

Figure 2

Distribution of the number of publications related to the research on inflammation and thyroid cancer in disease areas.

Figure 3

Map of national or regional cooperation. (A) Circular chart of national or regional cooperation, the connection between nodes represents cooperation, and the thickness of the line represents the strength of cooperation. (B) Map of countries or regions according to the proportion of published papers. (C)The contribution of various countries across the world. The darker shades correspond to higher contribution to the field.

Figure 4

Institutional cooperation map, the size of the nodes indicates the number of publications, and the thickness and length of the links between the nodes indicate the strength and relevance of the connections between the nodes.

Figure 5

Author-level analysis: (A) Corresponding author’s countries, SCP represents the number of co-authored papers by authors of the same nationality, while MCP represents the number of co-authored papers with authors from other countries. (B) Co-occurrence of authors network map, nodes represent different authors, node size represents the number of author posts, the thickness of the connecting line between nodes represents the strength of cooperation.

Figure 6

(A) Showcases visualizations of journals;(B) The dual-map overlay of journals, the left label in the figure represents citing journals, the right label represents cited journals, and the colored paths represent the citation relationships between them.

Figure 7

A timeline view for co-cited references.

Figure 8

The most often cited top 20 sources. Citations that were particularly high that year are shown in red.

Figure 9

Cluster analysis and topic evolution of hot topics: (A) Network map of keywords occurring more than 10 times. (B) Overlay map of keywords based on average publication year. (C) Timeline view of keyword clustering, in the timeline view, the keywords on the same horizontal line belong to the right cluster. The colors of lines and keywords in the view correspond to the colors of the time bar in the lower left corner.