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Evolution of the scientific literature on esophageal cancer from 1945 to 2020: a bibliometric analysis

Abstract

The aim of this study was to use bibliometric techniques to provide a longitudinal view of the evolution over more than 50 years of the literature on esophageal cancer without focusing on a specific area. The Web of Science Core Collection database was searched for published articles on esophageal neoplasm. Different aspects of the articles were analyzed - country, journal, authors, keywords, and topics. The search returned 24,215 articles - the journal Diseases of the Esophagus present the most number of manuscripts (n = 858), followed by Annals of Surgical Oncology (n = 475).The most cited article was one by van Hagen et al. (2012)VAN HAGEN P ET AL. 2012. Preoperative chemoradiotherapy for esophageal or junctional cancer. N Engl J Med 366(22): 2074-2084. DOI 10.1056/NEJMoa1112088. (2,807 citations). The most prevalent topic was oncology (n = 10,448), followed by surgery (n = 4,944). Most articles were original research (n = 22,697), mainly with the basic science study design and published by institutions in China. The analysis of the variables chosen, identified China as the country with the highest number of articles and showed that authors and institutions in Asia stand out when it comes to production of scientific information on esophageal cancer.

Key words
Bibliometric analysis; Esophageal cancer; Oncology; Review

INTRODUCTION

Esophageal cancer is the seventh most common and the sixth most fatal type of cancer worldwide (Sung et al. 2021SUNG H, FERLAY J, SIEGEL RL, LAVERSANNE M, SOERJOMATARAM I, JEMAL A & BRAY F. 2021. Global cancer statistics 2020: GLOBOCAN estimates of incidence and mortality worldwide for 36 cancers in 185 countries. CA: Cancer J Clin 71(3): 209-249. DOI 10.3322/caac.21660.). It is often divided into two histological subtypes: esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) and esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) (Zulfiqar et al. 2013ZULFIQAR M, BHALLA A, WEINDEL M & SHIDHAM VB. 2013. Molecular diagnostics in esophageal and gastric neoplasms. Clin Lab Med 33(4): 867-873. DOI 10.1016/j.cll.2018.02.009., Pickens 2022PICKENS A. 2022. Racial Disparities in Esophageal Cancer. Thorac Surg Clin 32(1): 57-65. DOI 10.1016/j.thorsurg.2021.09.004.). ESCC is the most frequently occurring subtype in the world, but EAC has been increasingly identified in developed countries (Peters et al. 2021PETERS Y, VAN GRINSVEN E & SIERSEMA PD. 2021. Systematic review with meta-analysis: the effects of family history on the risk of Barrett’s oesophagus and oesophageal adenocarcinoma. Aliment Pharmacol & Ther 54(7): 868-879. DOI 10.1111/apt.16558., Lipenga et al. 2021LIPENGA T, MATUMBA L, VIDAL A, HERCEG Z, MCCORMACK V, DE SAEGER S & DE BOEVRE M. 2021. A concise review towards defining the exposome of oesophageal cancer in sub-Saharan Africa. Environ Int 157: 106880. DOI 10.1016/j.envint.2021.106880.). Alcohol consumption, smoking, Barrett’s esophagus, gastric reflux, and obesity are the risk factors for the development of esophageal neoplasia (Lu et al. 2021LU L, MULLINS CS, SCHAFMAYER C, ZEIßIG S & LINNEBACHER M. 2021. A global assessment of recent trends in gastrointestinal cancer and lifestyle-associated risk factors. Cancer Commun 41(11): 1137-1151. DOI 10.1002/cac2.12220., Gokulan et al. 2019GOKULAN RC, GARCIA-BUITRAGO MT & ZAIKA AI. 2019. From genetics to signaling pathways: molecular pathogenesis of esophageal adenocarcinoma. Biochim Biophys Acta Rev Cancer 1872(1): 37-48. DOI 10.1016/j.bbcan.2019.05.003.). Chemoradiation is the treatment of choice for patients considered ineligible for esophagectomy, due to cardiac comorbidities or general clinical frailty (Allum et al. 2014ALLUM WH ET AL. 2014. Surgical treatments for esophageal cancers. Ann N Y Acad Sci 1325:242-268. DOI 10.1111/nyas.12533., Wang & Marshall 2021WANG SX & MARSHALL MB. 2021. Chemoradiation Therapy as Definitive Treatment of Esophageal Cancer. Surg Clin North Am 101(3): 443-451. DOI 10.1016/j.suc.2021.03.006.).

Bibliometric analysis evaluates the importance of articles published in a specific research area (Mainwaring et al. 2020MAINWARING A, BULLOCK N, ELLUL T, HUGHES O & FEATHERSTONE J. 2020. The top 100 most cited manuscripts in bladder cancer: a bibliometric analysis. Int J Surg 75: 130-138. DOI 10.1016/j.ijsu.2020.01.128.). Citation frequency is a measure to determine the impact of the published articles on the scientific community. Bibliometrics is a valuable tool to promote and identify areas with underestimated potential (Akmal et al. 2020AKMAL M, HASNAIN N, REHAN A, IQBAL U, HASHMI S, FATIMA K, FAROOQ MZ, KHOSA F, SIDDIQI J & KHAN MK. 2020. Glioblastome multiforme: a bibliometric analysis. Worl Neurosur 136: 270-282. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wneu.2020.01.027.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wneu.2020.01.0...
, Mörschbächer & Granada 2022MÖRSCHBÄCHER AP & GRANADA CE. 2022. Mapping the worldwide knowledge of antimicrobial substances produced by Lactobacillus spp.: a bibliometric analysis. Biochem Eng J 180: 108343. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bej.2022.108343.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bej.2022.10834...
). The R-tool Biblioshiny is a software used for bibliometric analysis (Liu et al. 2020LIU C, YUAN Q, MAO Z, HU P, CHI K, GENG X, HONG Q & SUN X. 2020. The top 100 most cited articles on rhabdomyolysis: a bibliometric analysis. Am J Emerg Med 38(9): 1754-1759. DOI 10.1016/j.ajem.2020.05.031.). This program it lists and analyzes country networks, institutions, co-citations, journals, and references based on bibliographic records collected from the Web of Science (WoS) (Chang et al. 2015CHANG W ET AL. 2015. Package ‘shiny’. See http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download. Acessed: 15 January 2022.
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/dow...
). The aim of this study was to use bibliometric techniques to provide a longitudinal view of the evolution over more than 50 years (1945 to 2020) of the literature on esophageal cancer without focusing on a specific area.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Data were collected from WoS on September 17, 2021 to avoid biases and discrepancies caused by database updates. WoS is considered the main data source for bibliometric analyses, providing comprehensive and multidisciplinary data on the literature listed (Archambault et al. 2009ARCHAMBAULT É, CAMPBELL D, GINGRAS Y & LARIVIÈRE V. 2009. Comparing bibliometric statistics obtained from the Web of Science and Scopus. J Am Soc Inf Sci Technol 60(7): 1320-1326. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.21062.
https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.21062...
, Yin et al. 2021YIN M, XU C, MA J, YE J & MO W. 2021. A bibliometric analysis and visualization of current research trends in the treatment of cervical spondylotic myelopathy. Global S J 11(6): 988-998. DOI 10.1177/2192568220948832., Zhang et al. 2022ZHANG Y, LIM D, YAO Y, DONG C & FENG Z. 2022. Global Research Trends in Radiotherapy for Gliomas: A Systematic Bibliometric Analysis. World Neurosurg 161: e355-e362. DOI 10.1016/j.wneu.2022.02.001.). To ensure that all relevant articles were identified, the appropriate search terms were compiled and combined as follows: TS = “cancer*” OR “Neoplasm*” OR “Carcinoma*” OR “Adenocarcinoma*” OR “Squamous cell*” and TS= “Esophageal” OR “Oesophageal” OR “Esophagus”.

In this study, only articles and reviews written in English and published between 1945 and 2020, were considered. As no experiments on animals or humans were performed, no ethical approval was required. The thematic search strategy employed to collect all documents relevant to the subject was based on the article title. Search accuracy was increased by excluding documents classified as book chapters, notes, editorials, letters, or errata; only journal articles were considered.

The bibliometric information of the selected articles was exported as .CSV (comma-separated values) files using the WoS access of the University of Taquari Valley for subsequent data processing. The main bibliometric indicators analyzed were; (I) the most influential articles on esophageal cancer (total number of citations), (II) country/region, (III) productivity (number of publications), (IV) year of publication, (V) research institution, (VI) source/journal in which the articles were published, (VII) keywords, and (VIII) topic. Standard competition ranking (SCR) was used to rank some variables from one to ten.

The Hirsch index (h-index) and impact factor were used as bibliometric indicators to evaluate research impact and/or quality. Hirsch created the h-index in 2005 to measure the scientific development of authors, journals, institutions, and countries; the index is proportional to research productivity and number of citations—a high h-index indicates that the publication has had a significant impact on the development of the scientific community’s knowledge (Hirsch 2005HIRSCH JE. 2005. An index to quantify an individual’s scientific research output. PNAS 102(46): 16569-16572. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0507655102.
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0507655102...
). The quality of each article was measured by the impact factor of the journal that published it (Journal Citation Report®, JCR) (Thomson Reuters 2020THOMSON REUTERS. 2020. JOURNAL CITATION REPORTS®. http://www.isiknowledge.com. Accessed 16 Out 2020.
http://www.isiknowledge.com...
).

Data analysis

Bibliometric mapping and network visualization were developed in the R-tool Biblioshiny (Chang et al. 2015CHANG W ET AL. 2015. Package ‘shiny’. See http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download. Acessed: 15 January 2022.
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/dow...
), and the most frequent terms in the titles of the articles were selected. Microsoft Excel 2021 (Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Washington, USA) was used to analyze quantitative variables such as publication and citation counts and journal citation reports.

RESULTS

The WoS search returned 24,215 articles published since 1945. The ten most influential articles on esophageal cancer (total number of citations) showed 17,243 citations collectively (Table I) in 60% of those articles, the impact of surgery alone was compared with chemotherapy, radiotherapy, combined surgery, and monoclonal antibody use on disease-free survival (Herskovic et al. 1992HERSKOVIC A, MARTZ K, AL-SARRAF M, LEICHMAN L, BRINDLE J, VAITKEVICIUS V, COOPER J, BYHARDT R, DAVIS L & EMAMI B. 1992. Combined chemotherapy and radiotherapy compared with radiotherapy alone in patients with cancer of the esophagus. N Engl J Med 326(24): 1593-1598. DOI 10.1056/NEJM199206113262403., Walsh et al. 1996WALSH TN, NOONAN N, HOLLYWOOD D, KELLY A, KEELING N & HENNESSY TP. 1996. A comparison of multimodal therapy and surgery for esophageal adenocarcinoma. N Engl J Med 335(7): 462-467. DOI 10.1056/NEJM199608153350702., Mandard et al. 1994MANDARD AM ET AL. 1994. Pathologic assessment of tumor regression after preoperative chemoradiotherapy of esophageal carcinoma. Clinicopathologic correlations. Cancer 73(11): 2680-2686. DOI10.1002/1097-0142(19940601)73:11<2680::AID-CNCR2820731105>3.0.CO;2-C., Cooper et al. 1999COOPER JS ET AL. 1999. Chemoradiotherapy of locally advanced esophageal cancer: long-term follow-up of a prospective randomized trial (RTOG 85-01). Jama 281(17): 1623-1627. DOI 10.1001/jama.281.17.1623., Fuchs et al. 2014FUCHS CS ET AL. 2014. Trial Investigators. 2014. Ramucirumab monotherapy for previously treated advanced gastric or gastro-oesophageal junction adenocarcinoma (REGARD): an international, randomised, multicentre, placebo-controlled, phase 3 trial. Lancet 383(9911): 31-39. DOI 10.1016/S0140-6736(13)61719-5., Van Hagen et al. 2012VAN HAGEN P ET AL. 2012. Preoperative chemoradiotherapy for esophageal or junctional cancer. N Engl J Med 366(22): 2074-2084. DOI 10.1056/NEJMoa1112088.). The most cited article (2,807 citations) was one by Van Hagen et al. (2012)VAN HAGEN P ET AL. 2012. Preoperative chemoradiotherapy for esophageal or junctional cancer. N Engl J Med 366(22): 2074-2084. DOI 10.1056/NEJMoa1112088. published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which compared the use of surgery alone with chemoradiotherapy associated with surgery as a form of treatment for patients with esophageal or esophagogastric junction cancer in the period from 2004 to 2008 it was published by the research group of the Erasmus MC Cancer Institute, located in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Table I
The ten most cited articles on esophageal cancer.

Analysis of the geographical distribution of scientific production (Figure 1) revealed the following: Seven countries from three continents (Asia, America, and Europe) published approximately 90% of the articles. Of the 105 countries that published articles, 79 (75.23%) presented less than 100, an indication of few groups with high scientific production rates in this field. China presents the highest number of articles (n = 7,720 [31.88%]), followed by the US with 5,119 (21.13%) and Japan with 4,939 (20.39%); whereas some countries in South America, Africa, and Europe had none.

Figure 1
Geographical distribution of articles on esophageal cancer. Software: Microsoft Excel 2021.

Ten authors presented the highest number of articles, 2,181 collectively (Table II). The author name with the most articles was Li, Y., but because there are multiple authors from different institutions named Li, Y., this name was excluded from the analysis. Consequently, Kuwano, H. was the author with the highest number of articles (n = 257 [6.91%]) and cited 7,704 times, followed by Wang, Y. with 248 articles (4.14%) and 4,615 citations and Zhang, Y. with 243 articles (4.01%) and 4,474 citations.

Table II
The most productive authors in the field of esophageal cancer research.

The first articles in this field were by de Nielsen 1945NIELSEN J. 1945. Clinical Results with Rotation Therapy in Cancer of the Esophagus: A preliminary Report based on 174 Cases. Acta Radiol 4: 361-391. DOI 10.3109/00016924509133000., Clark 1945CLARK DE. 1945. Transthoracic Esophagogastrostomy for Carcinoma of the Middle Third of the Esophagus. Report of a Successful Resection. Ann Surg 121: 1-65. DOI 10.1097/00000658-194501000-00004., Sweet 1945aSWEET RH. 1945a. Transthoracic resection of the esophagus and stomach for carcinoma: analysis of the postoperative complications, causes of death, and late results of operation. Ann Surg 121(3): 272. DOI 10.1097/00000658-194503000-00002., Tomlinson & Wilson 1945TOMLINSON WJ & WILSON LA. 1945. Esophageal carcinoma in british west indian and panamanian negroes-a study of the incidence, etiologic factors and pathologic anatomy in 50 cases. Arch Pathol 39(2): 79-80., Boros 1945BOROS E. 1945. Carcinoma of the esophagus-a survey of 332 cases. Gastroenterol 5(2): 106-111., Gaffney 1945GAFFNEY RJ. 1945. Carcinoma of the esophagus—Apparent cure. Case report. Laryngoscope 55(3): 154-154. https://doi.org/10.1288/00005537-194503000-00008.
https://doi.org/10.1288/00005537-1945030...
, Sweet 1945bSWEET RH. 1945b. Surgical management of carcinoma of the midthoracic esophagus: preliminary report. N Engl J Med 233(1): 1-7. DOI 10.1056/NEJM194507052330101. and Hoover 1945HOOVER WB. 1945. Carcinoma associated with esophageal diverticulum-report of a case. Surg Clin North Am 25(3): 707-712.. These articles ranged from case reports to surgical management in the treatment of esophageal cancer. The number of articles continuously increased annually over time. The highest productivity was observed in 2020 with 2,108 articles (8.70%) - only a few were published from 1945 to 1980 (n = 789 [3.25%]), whereas more than half (n = 14,995 [61.92%]) were published from 2010 - 2020 (Figure 2).

Figure 2
Growth trend of articles on esophageal cancer from 1945 to 2020. Software: Microsoft Excel 2021.

Among the institutions with the highest number of articles, it was noted that a majority are located in China (Table III), with Zhengzhou University leading the list with 875 articles, 16,688 citations, and an h-index of 57, followed by the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College with 777 articles, 27,418 citations, and an h-index of 80 and the University of Texas System with 657 articles, 30,171 citations, and an h-index of 85.

Table III
The ten most productive institutions in the field of esophageal cancer research.

The journal Diseases of the Esophagus had the highest number of articles (n = 858), totaling 14,237 citations (Table IV), followed by the Annals of Surgical Oncology with 475 articles and 12,136 citations. Although the Cancer journal had the third-highest number of articles (n = 450), it had the highest number of citations (30,424) and, consequently, the highest h-index (90). Furthermore, considering its high impact factor, the International Journal of Cancer (7,396) has demonstrated publication specificity and relevance to the scientific community in the field of esophageal cancer research.

Table IV
Distribution of articles on esophageal cancer in journals.

Keywords represent a brief summary of an article, while clustering and multiple correspondence analyses can quickly determine the specialty and the development of research articles in a specific area. These analyses were performed using the R-tool Biblioshiny. The 500 most cited articles in 2020 were selected to build a keyword co-occurrence network. Two main areas were identified in the articles, one associated with the genetic expression of tumors and prognosis, and the other related to different esophageal cancer histological types and treatment response. The word “cancer” was used to represent 119 articles, followed by “expression” (112 articles), “survival” (75 articles), and “proliferation” (54 articles) (Figure 3).

Figure 3
Co-occurrence network of keywords used in articles on esophageal cancer. Blue: Co-occurrence network of keywords associated with genetic expression of esophageal tumors and prognosis: Red: Co-occurrence network of keywords associated with esophageal cancer and treatment response. Software: R-tool Biblioshiny.

The most representative topic in the articles was oncology (43.15%), followed by surgery (20.42%) (Figure 4). Other topics such as experimental research in medicine and cell biology and pathology were covered in 18.5% of the articles. Of the 24,215 articles, 93.73% are original research and 42.66% are open access.

Figure 4
Distribution of articles by topic. Software: Microsoft Excel 2021.

DISCUSSION

This is the first bibliometric analysis to verify all existing publications on esophageal cancer. It includes 24,215 articles published from 1945 to 2020, and the most cited article was published in 2012 by van Hagen et al. (2012)VAN HAGEN P ET AL. 2012. Preoperative chemoradiotherapy for esophageal or junctional cancer. N Engl J Med 366(22): 2074-2084. DOI 10.1056/NEJMoa1112088.. Among the articles with the highest number of citations, eight are original studies on epidemiological data, different forms of treatment, and risk factors for the development of esophageal cancer (Herskovic et al. 1992HERSKOVIC A, MARTZ K, AL-SARRAF M, LEICHMAN L, BRINDLE J, VAITKEVICIUS V, COOPER J, BYHARDT R, DAVIS L & EMAMI B. 1992. Combined chemotherapy and radiotherapy compared with radiotherapy alone in patients with cancer of the esophagus. N Engl J Med 326(24): 1593-1598. DOI 10.1056/NEJM199206113262403., Walsh et al. 1996WALSH TN, NOONAN N, HOLLYWOOD D, KELLY A, KEELING N & HENNESSY TP. 1996. A comparison of multimodal therapy and surgery for esophageal adenocarcinoma. N Engl J Med 335(7): 462-467. DOI 10.1056/NEJM199608153350702., Mandard et al. 1994MANDARD AM ET AL. 1994. Pathologic assessment of tumor regression after preoperative chemoradiotherapy of esophageal carcinoma. Clinicopathologic correlations. Cancer 73(11): 2680-2686. DOI10.1002/1097-0142(19940601)73:11<2680::AID-CNCR2820731105>3.0.CO;2-C., Cooper et al. 1999COOPER JS ET AL. 1999. Chemoradiotherapy of locally advanced esophageal cancer: long-term follow-up of a prospective randomized trial (RTOG 85-01). Jama 281(17): 1623-1627. DOI 10.1001/jama.281.17.1623., Fuchs et al. 2014FUCHS CS ET AL. 2014. Trial Investigators. 2014. Ramucirumab monotherapy for previously treated advanced gastric or gastro-oesophageal junction adenocarcinoma (REGARD): an international, randomised, multicentre, placebo-controlled, phase 3 trial. Lancet 383(9911): 31-39. DOI 10.1016/S0140-6736(13)61719-5., Van Hagen et al. 2012VAN HAGEN P ET AL. 2012. Preoperative chemoradiotherapy for esophageal or junctional cancer. N Engl J Med 366(22): 2074-2084. DOI 10.1056/NEJMoa1112088., Hoover 1945HOOVER WB. 1945. Carcinoma associated with esophageal diverticulum-report of a case. Surg Clin North Am 25(3): 707-712., Lagergren et al. 1999LAGERGREN J, BERGSTRÖM R, LINDGREN A & NYRÉN O. 1999. Symptomatic gastroesophageal reflux as a risk factor for esophageal adenocarcinoma. N Engl J Med 340(11): 825-831. DOI 10.1056/NEJM199903183401101., Devesa et al. 1998DEVESA SS, BLOT WJ & FRAUMENI JR JF. 1998. Changing patterns in the incidence of esophageal and gastric carcinoma in the United States. Cancer 83(10): 2049-2053. DOI 10.1002/(SICI)1097-0142(19981115)83:10<2049::AID-CNCR1>3.0.CO;2-2.). There are two reviews (Table I), in which data on pathogenesis, treatment, diagnosis, prognosis, management, and advances in the treatment of esophageal neoplasia were compiled (Enzinger & Mayer 2003ENZINGER PC & MAYER RJ. 2003. Esophageal cancer. N Engl J Med 349(23): 2241-2252. DOI 10.1056/NEJMra035010., Pennathur et al.2013PENNATHUR A, GIBSON MK, JOBE BA & LUKETICH JD. 2013. Oesophageal carcinoma. Lancet 381(9864): 400-412. DOI 10.1016/S0140-6736(12)60643-6.). The analysis shows that the number of articles increased annually, with more than half published in the last decade (2011–2020), indicating research advancements in this field of study.

The New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet published the articles with the highest number of citations. These journals have a high impact factor and are recognized for their influence and quality; thus, their articles are likely to be cited more by the scientific community. Diseases of the Esophagus is the journal with the highest number of articles probably because it specifically publishes articles on pathologies of the esophagus and their etiology, diagnosis, and pharmacological and surgical treatment.

The analysis of institutions, authors, and countries with more articles shows the representativeness of the research conducted in Asia. Among the ten institutions that have conducted more research in this field, eight are in Asia, as are the ten authors with the highest number of citations. Among countries, China presents the highest number of articles. Advances in esophageal cancer research are probably owing to the 35% increase estimated in the number of new cases by 2030. In other words, in less than a decade, China is expected to have around 100,000 new esophageal cancer patients, an increase from 324,000 to 436,000 (IARC 2022IARC. 2022. International Agency for Research on Cancer. Cancer Tomorrow. Available in: https://gco.iarc.fr/tomorrow. Accessed: 20 January 2022.
https://gco.iarc.fr/tomorrow...
, Li et al. 2022LI W, WAN L, DUAN S & XU J. 2022. Bibliometric analysis of toll-like receptor agonists associated with cancer therapy. Medicine 101(1): 28520. DOI 10.1097/MD.0000000000028520.). In addition, China is a developing country continuously funding basic research in several areas (Li et al. 2022LI W, WAN L, DUAN S & XU J. 2022. Bibliometric analysis of toll-like receptor agonists associated with cancer therapy. Medicine 101(1): 28520. DOI 10.1097/MD.0000000000028520.).

The result of the keyword analysis reflects the areas in which research worldwide was focused in 2020 and emerging areas for future research. Topics such as expression, cancer, metastasis, diagnosis, and survival indicate the need to understand the high mortality of esophageal cancer and identify possible correlations between genetic patterns and resistance to the chemoradiotherapy treatment used. They seek to identify genes or proteins that would be linked to the development of esophageal neoplasia that can serve as biomarkers for screening and diagnosis (Wang et al. 2018WANG M, SMITH JS & WEI WQ. 2018. Tissue protein biomarker candidates to predict progression of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma and precancerous lesions. Ann N Y Acad Sci 1434(1): 59-69. DOI 10.1111/nyas.13863., Chu et al. 2020CHU LY, PENG YH, WENG XF, XIE JJ & XU YW. 2020. Blood-based biomarkers for early detection of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. World J Gastroenterol 26(15): 1708-1725. DOI 10.3748/wjg.v26.i15.1708.).

However, while bibliometric analysis could be useful for identifying the main topics and publications within a specialty, it can be limited by several types of bias. The use of only one database (WoS), even if widely used, to search for articles on esophageal cancer could have led to omission from the analysis of articles published in journals not indexed in WoS. The search based on the article title could have led to exclusion of articles not containing the keywords for esophageal neoplasia used in the search. Finally, the exclusion of textbooks, lectures, and conference abstracts could have led to a loss of information relevant to the area investigated. These biases could have influenced the accuracy of the results of the bibliometric search.

This study identified the most influential articles on esophageal cancer published from 1945 to 2020. Analysis of the variables chosen identified China as the country with the highest number of articles and showed that authors and institutions in Asia stand out when it comes to production of scientific information on esophageal cancer.

The results of this bibliometric analysis have the potential to inform key stakeholders (academic journals, health policymakers, and funding agencies) about trends and gaps, such as biomarker research, in scientific production on esophageal cancer and guide future research. Thus, these data can help avoid the duplication of research efforts and waste of valuable resources.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors thank the University of Taquari Valley (Univates: Universidade do Vale do Taquari) and the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES/Brazil) for the scholarships granted (001 code). This study was funded by Capes/Brazil and University of Taquari Valley (Univates).

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Publication Dates

  • Publication in this collection
    10 Feb 2023
  • Date of issue
    2023

History

  • Received
    19 Aug 2022
  • Accepted
    12 Oct 2022
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