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Global research trends in radiotherapy for breast cancer: a systematic bibliometric analysis

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Japanese Journal of Radiology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

Breast cancer is the most common malignant tumor in women. Radiotherapy (RT) is an important adjunctive therapy for breast cancer, but the current international research trend of RT in breast cancer treatment and management is unclear. This bibliometric analysis was conducted to investigate the current trends and hot topics in this area.

Materials and methods

The Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC; Clarivate) database was searched, VOSviewer 1.6.18 and CiteSpace 6.1.R2 software were employed for the quantitative and qualitative analysis.

Results

12,268 publications were included in this bibliometric analysis. There was an increasing trend of publications and international collaborations in the topic. The United States and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center were the most productive countries and institutions, respectively. The analysis of journals showed researches focused on both basic and clinical medicine on breast cancer RT. Park Won published the most papers and Fisher B had the most co-citations. The most co-cited paper was published in the Lancet. Survival, risk, chemotherapy, mastectomy, and surgery were regarded as current research hotspots through the analysis of keywords.

Conclusion

Through quantitative and qualitative bibliometric analyses, this study provides insights into the research trends and potential research hotspots on breast cancer RT.

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Acknowledgements

This study was funded by grants from National Natural Science Foundation of China, China (No. 82173460).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Occupational Health and Occupational Medicine, School of Public Health, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, 44 Wenhua Xi Road, Jinan, 250012, Shandong, China

    Beidi Jia, Yisha Zhang, Chao Dong & Zhihui Feng

  2. School of Health Sciences, Western Sydney University, Campbelltown, NSW, Australia

    David Lim

  3. College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University, Bedford Park, SA, Australia

    David Lim

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  1. Beidi Jia
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  4. Chao Dong
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  5. Zhihui Feng
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Contributions

Conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis and investigation, writing—original draft preparation, writing—review and editing: BJ; conceptualization, methodology, writing—original draft preparation, writing—review and editing: DL; conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis and investigation, writing—original draft preparation: YZ; conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis and investigation, writing—original draft preparation: CD; conceptualization, methodology, writing—original draft preparation, writing—review and editing, funding acquisition, resources, supervision: ZF.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zhihui Feng.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical statement

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors. The data used in this research is freely available in the public domains (e.g., published biographies) and ethics approval was obtained at the time of the original data collection.

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Jia, B., Lim, D., Zhang, Y. et al. Global research trends in radiotherapy for breast cancer: a systematic bibliometric analysis. Jpn J Radiol 41, 648–659 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11604-022-01383-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11604-022-01383-x

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