Global Scientific Research Progress in Thyroid Cancer: A Bibliometric Analysis
Hassan H. Musa1,2, Idriss H. Musa1,3, Mansour El-Sharief2, Taha H. Musa1,3,4*
1 Biomedical Research Institute, Darfur College, Nyala, Sudan;
2 Faculty of Medical Laboratory Sciences, University of Khartoum, Khartoum, Sudan;
3 School of Medicine, Darfur College, Nyala, Sudan;
4 Organization of African Academic Doctor (OAAD), Off Kamiti Road, P.O Box 25305000100, Nairobi, Kenya.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest regarding the publication of this paper.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http: //creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Taha H. Musa, Biomedical Research Institute, Darfur College, Nyala, Sudan.
Email: taha.hm99@yahoo.com
Received: April 23, 2021
Revised: May 20, 2021
Accepted: May 25, 2021
Published online: May 31, 2021
The incidence of thyroid cancer (TC) has rapidly increased in the world. The study aims to provide a detailed evaluation of thyroid cancer research output. Data were retrieved from the Web of Science (WOS) Core Collection and Scopus databases for bibliometric analysis. A total of 10689 and 9063 documents of TC were retrieved from Scopus and WOS, respectively. Dramatic growth in the global TC research was observed from 1991-2020. USA, China, Italy, Korea, Japan and Germany were the leading countries; the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and the University of Pisa were the leading institutes in thyroid cancer research at the global level. A scientist from the division of medicine, biochemistry, genetics and molecular biology were contributed more than 85% of the publications. USA agencies supported 25.68% of TC research. Journal of thyroid and journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism are the most productive journals. Wang Y and Tuttle RM were the top productive, authors. Revised American thyroid association management guidelines for patients with thyroid nodules and differentiated thyroid cancer authored by Cooper DS et al., published in 2009, was the most cited article. The most retrieved keywords were thyroid cancer, papillary thyroid cancer, and differentiated thyroid cancer. The study concludes that USA institutes and funding agencies contribute to thyroid cancer research at a global level. Papillary thyroid cancer is a hot topic for research.
Key words: Thyroid cancer; Bibliometrics; Scopus; Web of Science
© 2021 The Author(s). Published by ACT Publishing Group Ltd. All rights reserved.
Musa HH, Musa IH, El-Sharief M, Musa TH. Global Scientific Research Progress in Thyroid Cancer: A Bibliometric Analysis. Journal of Tumor 2021; 9(1): 579-586 Available from: URL: http://www.ghrnet.org/index.php/jt/article/view/3154
The thyroid is important endocrine gland composed histologically two main parenchymal cell types. Follicular cells, concentrate iodine, and produce thyroid hormones. These cells rise to well-differentiated cancers (i.e., papillary and follicular) and anaplastic thyroid cancer. The para-follicular cell, produces the hormone calcitonin and is the cell for medullary thyroid carcinoma[1-5]. The incidence of thyroid cancer has increased greatly worldwide in the past few decades, about two-fold accounting for 2% of all cancers[6-10]. In the United States, thyroid cancer incidence rates have increased by 211% between 1975 and 2013[11]. This increase was attributed mainly to papillary thyroid cancer, the most common histologic subtype of thyroid cancer, accounts for 88% of all thyroid malignancies[10,12]. While the increase for follicular or medullary subtypes were to a much lesser extent [13].
Several environnemental and genetic factors are contributed in the incidence of thyroid cancer such as radiation, iodine intake, age, female sex, and family history[9,14,15]. Conventional therapeutics for thyroid cancer include surgery, chemo-therapy, radioactive iodine treatment, and external beam radiotherapy[16,17], systemic therapy may also be offered[18].
Bibliometrics is a useful method to evaluate the trends of research activity over time and to inform future policy[19].The role of research in addressing the burden of disease, improved health and healthcare delivery and develop evidence-based policy[20,21]. Only one study was conducted on thyroid research and practice, but not on thyroid cancer [22]. Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine the research activity related to thyroid cancer in the world through the quantification of the published articles. Further to gives better understand of research progress and development trends over the time and provide information for funding agencies to establish related guidelines on thyroid cancer research.
Data source
The data was collected from both Web of Science (WOS) Core Collection database maintained by Clarivate Analytics, including Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED) and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), and the Scopus databases Access date: 15 June 2020), the extracted data were analyzed using bibliometric methods.
The literature search
The literature review was conducted using the keyword “Thyroid cancer” OR “Papillary thyroid cancer” OR “Follicular thyroid cancer” OR “Medullary thyroid cancer” OR “Anaplastic thyroid cancer” in the ‘‘Research Area’’ category using the advanced search option available in WOS and Scopus data bases. The search was refined by: Searched document types “ARTICLE OR REVIEW” were included in the Indexes=SCI-EXPANDED, SSCI for WOS database. Timespan starts from 1991-2020, Language=English for overall selected databases. Final cross-examination of the selected database was performed independently by (THM and HHM) in one a single day on June 15, 2020 to avoid the update of the citations. Ethical approval for the study was not necessary since we were downloaded the data of thyroid cancer from the public databases (WOS and Scopus) and did not involve any interactions with human or animal subjects.
Data analysis and visualization
Bibliometric analyses were performed using Bibliometrix an R Package to assess the growth trend, countries, initiations, authorship, journal, high cited articles, funding agency and research categories. VOSviewer 1.6.10 program produced by (Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands)[23] was used for constructing and visualizing bibliometric networks for countries/territories collaborations, insinuate collaborations, citations and co-occurrence keywords. Further Statistical analysis was conducted using SPSS (Version 22.0, SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA, License). The relation between the number of publications of the countries and the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), was analyzed using the Spearman’s correlation coefficient. A correlation coefficient of 0.90 to1.00 was considered very high, 0.70 to 0.89 was considered high, 0.50 to 0.69 was considerate moderate, and 0.26 to 0.49 was low.
Global trend in thyroid cancer research
The characteristics of thyroid cancer extracted data were studied for both WOS and Scopus metadata. In Scopus, the 10689 documents received 8.49 average years from publication, 25.96 average citations per documents, and 2.629 scores of average citations per year per documents. Whereas, in WOS the 9063 documents received average years from publication 8.19 score, average citations per documents 26.19 score, and average citations per year per documents 2.78 scores (Table 1). The global trend of publications on thyroid cancer research was annually increased; the number of publication indexed in Scopus database was higher compared with WOS (Figure 1).
Table 1 Thyroid cancer information indexced in WOS and Scopus database (1991- 2020). | ||
Description | WOS meta data | Scopus meta data |
Timespan | 1991:2020 | 1991:2020 |
Documents | 9063 | 10689 |
Average years from publication | 8.19 | 8.49 |
Average citations per documents | 26.49 | 25.96 |
Average citations per year per doc | 2.783 | 2.629 |
References | 126188 | 270411 |
Document types | ||
Article | 8025 | 9095 |
Review | 1038 | 1594 |
Document contents | ||
Keywords Plus | 9850 | 21832 |
Author's Keywords | 9540 | 10128 |
Authors | 28117 | 31128 |
Author appearances | 57985 | 69797 |
Authors of single-authored documents | 206 | 358 |
Authors of multi-authored documents | 27911 | 30770 |
Authors | 28117 | 31128 |
Authors collaboration | ||
Single-authored documents | 275 | 538 |
Documents per Author | 0.322 | 0.343 |
Authors per Document | 3.1 | 2.91 |
Co-Authors per Documents | 6.4 | 6.53 |
Collaboration Index | 3.18 | 3.03 |
Annual citations of thyroid cancer
The citation rate of the thyroid cancer research during the study period per total cited article and total cited documents per years for WOS, and Scopus metadata are demonstrated n Figure 2. The mean total cited article was sharply decreased after 2010. While the total cited documents per year was annually increasing.
Top productive countries in thyroid cancer research
A 58.89% of the total publications of TC were published in Scopus databases, and 78.92 % were published in WOS database. The most top 7 countries are presented with the same ranking in two databases. The USA was the highest production, followed by China, Italy, Korea, Japan and Germany, as shown in WOS databases and Scopus databases (Table 2). A correlation coefficient between the reported variables was 0.843 which shows a very high association between the thyroid cancer research in the top 10 produced countries and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the year 2019 (Figure 3).
Table 2 Top 10 most crosponding authros countries with more publications on thyroid cancer | ||||||
Country | Articles | % of article | No. of articles per million | SCP | MCP | MCP_Ratio |
Scopus data base | ||||||
USA | 2297 | 21.49 | 6.94 | 1904 | 393 | 0.17 |
China | 896 | 8.382 | 6.22 | 849 | 47 | 0.05 |
Italy | 773 | 7.232 | 1.28 | 634 | 139 | 0.18 |
Korea | 700 | 6.549 | 2.71 | 647 | 53 | 0.07 |
Japan | 437 | 4.088 | 3.45 | 394 | 43 | 0.09 |
Germany | 373 | 3.49 | 4.48 | 254 | 119 | 0.32 |
France | 240 | 2.245 | 3.68 | 183 | 57 | 0.24 |
United kingdom | 222 | 2.077 | 3.27 | 178 | 44 | 0.19 |
Canada | 215 | 2.011 | 5.69 | 172 | 43 | 0.2 |
Poland | 142 | 1.328 | 3.7 | 128 | 14 | 0.09 |
Total | 6295 | 58.89 | 41.42 | 5343 | 952 | 1.6 |
Web of Sciences (WOS) | ||||||
USA | 2430 | 26.812 | 7.34 | 1973 | 457 | 0.18 |
China | 1458 | 16.087 | 1.01 | 1345 | 113 | 0.07 |
Italy | 880 | 9.71 | 1.46 | 706 | 174 | 0.19 |
Korea | 637 | 7.029 | 2.47 | 589 | 48 | 0.07 |
Japan | 423 | 4.667 | 3.34 | 372 | 51 | 0.12 |
Germany | 401 | 4.425 | 4.82 | 282 | 119 | 0.29 |
France | 275 | 3.034 | 4.21 | 196 | 79 | 0.29 |
Canada | 240 | 2.648 | 6.35 | 187 | 53 | 0.22 |
United kingdom | 218 | 2.405 | 3.21 | 172 | 46 | 0.21 |
Turkey | 191 | 2.107 | 2.26 | 181 | 10 | 0.05 |
Total | 7153 | 78.92 | 2.26 | 181 | 10 | 0.05 |
Top 10 cited articles in thyroid cancer
The results of the top 10 listed documents in thyroid cancer indexed in WOS and Scopus metadata with total citation score are shown in Table 3. The results showed that the average total citations score among the top 10 Scopus documents was 2507.60±129.64, range 4718 to 1013, compared with the average of total citation score indexed in WOS 1663.90 ± 810.51 and range 4,331 to 894. There is no significant difference between the total citations sore in Scopus and WOS among the top 10 productive documents (p = 0.097).
Table 3 Top 10 cited papers in thyroid cancer indexed in Scopus data bases. | ||
R | Manuscript (first author, title, journal and year) indexed in Scopus | TC |
1st | Cooper, D.S., et al. Revised American thyroid association management guidelines for patients with thyroid nodules and differentiated thyroid cancer, 2009. Thyroid .19(11), pp. 1167-1214 | 4718 |
2nd | Haugen, B.R. et al. 2015 American Thyroid Association Management Guidelines for Adult Patients with Thyroid Nodules and Differentiated Thyroid Cancer: The American Thyroid Association Guidelines Task Force on Thyroid Nodules and Differentiated Thyroid Cancer, 2016. Thyroid 26(1), pp. 1-133 | 3793 |
3rd | Davies, L., Welch, H.G.Increasing incidence of thyroid cancer in the United States,2006 1973-2002 | 2299 |
4th | Rahib, L., et al. Projecting cancer incidence and deaths to 2030: The unexpected burden of thyroid, liver, and pancreas cancers in the united states,2014. Cancer Research 74(11), pp. 2913-2921 | 2242 |
5th | Mazzaferri, E.L., Jhiang, S.M.Long-term impact of initial surgical and medical therapy on papillary and follicular thyroid cancer, 1994. The American Journal of Medicine 97(5), pp. 418-428 | 1974 |
6th | Cooper, D.S. et al .Management guidelines for patients with thyroid nodules and differentiated thyroid cancer, 2006. Thyroid 16(2), pp. 109-141 | 1602 |
7th | Liaw, D., et al. Germline mutations of the PTEN gene in Cowden disease, an inherited breast and thyroid cancer syndrome,1997. Nature Genetics 16(1), pp. 64-67 | 1562 |
8th | Hundahl, S.A. et al. A National Cancer Data Base report on 53,856 cases of thyroid carcinoma treated in the U.S., 1985-1995,1998. Cancer 83(12), pp. 2638-2648 | 1358 |
9th | Kimura, E.T., et al. High prevalence of BRAF mutations in thyroid cancer: Genetic evidence for constitutive activation of the RET/PTC-RAS-BRAF signaling pathway in papillary thyroid carcinoma,2003. Cancer Research 63(7), pp. 1454-1457 | 1197 |
10th | Ron E, et al. Thyroid cancer after exposure to external radiation: A pooled analysis of seven studies,1995. RADIATION RESEARCH Volume: 141 Issue: 3 Pages: 259-277 Published: MAR 1995 | 1013 |
Manuscript (first author, title, journal and year) indexed in WOS | ||
1st | Cooper, D.S., et al. Revised American thyroid association management guidelines for patients with thyroid nodules and differentiated thyroid cancer, 2009. Thyroid .19(11), pp. 1167-1214 | 4331 |
2nd | Haugen, B.R. et al. 2015 American Thyroid Association Management Guidelines for Adult Patients with Thyroid Nodules and Differentiated Thyroid Cancer: The American Thyroid Association Guidelines Task Force on Thyroid Nodules and Differentiated Thyroid Cancer, 2016. Thyroid 26(1), pp. 1-133 | 3573 |
3rd | Rahib, L., et al. Projecting cancer incidence and deaths to 2030: The unexpected burden of thyroid, liver, and pancreas cancers in the united states,2014. Cancer Research 74(11), pp. 2913-2921 | 2162 |
4th | Davies, L., Welch, H.G.Increasing incidence of thyroid cancer in the United States,2006 1973-2002 | 2140 |
5th | Mazzaferri, E.L., Jhiang, S.M.Long-term impact of initial surgical and medical therapy on papillary and follicular thyroid cancer, 1994. The American Journal of Medicine 97(5), pp. 418-428 | 1752 |
Liaw, D., et al. Germline mutations of the PTEN gene in Cowden disease, an inherited breast and thyroid cancer syndrome,1997. Nature Genetics 16(1), pp. 64-67 | 1457 | |
7th | Cooper, D.S. et al .Management guidelines for patients with thyroid nodules and differentiated thyroid cancer, 2006. Thyroid 16(2), pp. 109-141 | 1441 |
8th | Hundahl, S.A. et al. A National Cancer Data Base report on 53,856 cases of thyroid carcinoma treated in the U.S., 1985-1995,1998. Cancer 83(12), pp. 2638-2648 | 1216 |
9th | Kimura, E.T., et al. High prevalence of BRAF mutations in thyroid cancer: Genetic evidence for constitutive activation of the RET/PTC-RAS-BRAF signaling pathway in papillary thyroid carcinoma,2003. Cancer Research 63(7), pp. 1454-1457 | 1110 |
10th | Ron E, et al. Thyroid cancer after exposure to external radiation: A pooled analysis of seven studies,1995. RADIATION RESEARCH Volume: 141 Issue: 3 Pages: 259-277 Published: MAR 1995 | 894 |
Top 10 Institutes focusing on thyroid cancer research
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, United States, had the greatest number of publications on thyroid cancer 716 papers, accounting for 7.90% of the total published literature in WOS, followed by the University of Pisa, Italy 582 publications, accounting for 6.42 published documents, and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Texas, United States of America 419 publications, accounting for 4.62% of total published literature in WOS compared with Scopus databases as shown in Table 4. Among the top 10 productive institutions in thyroid cancer, only one Chinese institute and two Korean Institute were included in Asia.
Table 4 Ranking of institutions that published articles on the thyroid cancer research. | ||||
R | Web of Science metadata | Scopus meta database | ||
Affiliations | NP (%) | Affiliations | NP (%) | |
1st | Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center | 716 (7.90) | University of Pisa | 407 (3.89) |
2nd | The University of Pisa | 582 (6.42) | National Cancer Institute | 374 (3.58) |
3rd | The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center | 419 (4.62) | Memorial Sloan-kettering Cancer Center | 294 (2.81) |
4th | Seoul National University | 407 (4.49) | University of California | 245 (2.34) |
5th | Johns Hopkins University | 380 (4.19) | Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center | 205 (1.96) |
6th | Ohio state University | 378 (4.17) | Harvard Medical School | 189 (1.81) |
7th | Yonsei University | 357 (3.94) | University of Toronto | 186 (1.78) |
8th | University Calif San Francisco | 328 (3.62) | Yonsei University College of Medicine | 169 (1.61) |
9th | University Ulsan | 318 (3.51) | Mayo Clinic | 168 (1.61) |
10th | Fudan University | 294 (3.24) | Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine | 158 (1.51) |
Note: R: rank, NB: Number of publications |
Top 10 research categories
The top 10 research field categories on thyroid cancer, noted that in Scopus 9016 documents were published in medicine, accounting 55.90%, followed by 5270 documents published in biochemistry, genetics and molecular biology, accounting 32.68%. Whereas, in WOS 2692 documents were published in oncology accounting 29.69%, followed by 2604 documents published in endocrinology and metabolism accounting 28.72% (Table 5).
Table 5 Top 10 research field categories on thyroid cancer. | ||||
R | Web of Science categories | NP (%) | Scopus categories | NP (%) |
1st | Oncology | 2,692 (29.69) | Medicine | 9016(55.90) |
2nd | Endocrinology Metabolism | 2,604 (28.72) | Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology | 5270(32.68) |
3rd | Surgery | 1,222 (13.48) | Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics | 304(1.88) |
4th | Radiology Nuclear Medicine Medical Imaging | 864 (9.53) | Multidisciplinary | 191(1.18) |
5th | Otorhinolaryngology | 433 (4.77) | Agriculture and Biological Sciences | 158(0.98) |
6th | Medicine Research Experimental | 430 (4.74) | Neurosciences | 148(0.92) |
7th | Cell Biology | 396 (4.37) | Environmental sciences | 141(0.87) |
8th | Medicine General internal | 358 (3.95) | Physics and Astronomy | 130(0.81) |
9th | Biochemistry Molecular Biology | 325 (3.58) | Immunology and Microbiology | 122(0.76) |
10th | Public Environmental Occupational Health | 260 (2.87) | Chemistry | 120(0.74) |
Note: R: rank, NB: Number of publications |
Top 10 funding agencies
The top 10 funding agencies in WOS and Scopus Metadata are shown in Table 6. A total of 912 studies accounting 10.06% were supported by the United States Department of Health Human Services, followed by National Institutes of Health NIH, USA 904 documents accounting 9.97%, and NIH National Cancer Institute NCI 512 documents accounting 5.65% of overall articles indexed in WOS.
Table 6 Top 10 related funding agencies contributed in published doucments related to thyroid cancer. | ||||
R | Web of Science Categories | NP (%) | Scopus database | NP (%) |
1st | United States Department of Health Human Services | 912 (10.06) | National Institutes of Health | 367(3.51) |
2nd | National Institutes of Health NIH USA | 904 (9.97) | National Natural Science Foundation of China | 330(3.16) |
3rd | NIH National Cancer Institute NCI | 512 (5.65) | National Cancer Institute | 195(1.87) |
4th | National Natural Science Foundation of China | 444 (4.89) | National Research Foundation of Korea | 95(0.91) |
5th | Associazione Italian Per la ricerca Sul cancro airc | 156 (1.72) | Association Italian per la Ricerca sul Cancro | 66(0.63) |
6th | Ministry of education universities and Research Miur | 99 (1.09) | American Cancer Society | 53(0.51) |
7th | American cancer society | 65 (0.72) | Eisai Inc. | 40(0.38) |
8th | Genzyme corporation | 63 (0.69) | Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning | 32(0.31) |
9th | Ministry of Education Culture Sports Science and Technology Japan Mext | 58 (0.64) | Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan | 28(0.27) |
10th | Eisai inc | 52 (0.57) | European Commission | 26(0.25) |
Note: R: rank, NP: Number of publications. |
Top 10 productive authors
Wang Y and Tuttle RM were the top productive authors published articles of thyroid cancer research in both WOS and Scopus databases. Pacini F has published 71 documents with high total citation reached to 13565 and h-index 35 scores in WOS. In addition, Pacini F was also published 86 documents with total citations 15902 scores, and h-index 39 scores in the Scopus database (Table 7).
Table 7 Top 10 author impact in the thyroid cancer research | |||||
R | Author | h_index | TC | NP | PY_start |
Web of Sciences data | |||||
1st | Wang Y | 21 | 1775 | 114 | 2007 |
2nd | Tuttle RM | 43 | 10979 | 114 | 1998 |
3rd | Zhang Y | 18 | 1647 | 90 | 2007 |
4th | Schlumberger M | 39 | 9742 | 87 | 1991 |
5th | Clark OH | 39 | 3699 | 83 | 1991 |
6th | Elisei R | 37 | 5901 | 82 | 1991 |
7th | Li X | 17 | 839 | 74 | 2007 |
8th | Chen H | 26 | 2075 | 75 | 1996 |
9th | Zhang L | 21 | 1565 | 74 | 2005 |
10th | Pacini F | 35 | 13565 | 71 | 1991 |
Scopus data bases | |||||
1st | Tuttle RM | 46 | 17041 | 133 | 1998 |
2nd | Wang Y | 23 | 1863 | 120 | 2007 |
3rd | Schlumberger M | 50 | 18791 | 123 | 1991 |
4th | Clark OH | 46 | 5391 | 107 | 1991 |
5th | Elisei R | 40 | 7597 | 101 | 1991 |
6th | Zhang Y | 22 | 1897 | 94 | 2007 |
7th | Kebebew E | 37 | 3903 | 88 | 2000 |
8th | Pacini F | 39 | 15902 | 86 | 1991 |
9th | Chen H | 29 | 2964 | 83 | 1996 |
10th | Sosa JA | 28 | 6743 | 82 | 2006 |
Note: NP: Number of publications, TC:Total citations, PY-star : Publications year starting |
Top 10 productive journals and their impact factor
The top productive journal published thyroid cancer articles include 1,114 journals in WOS databases and 1,653 Journal in Scopus databases. Among WOS databases, only 2175 documents have been reported published in top 10 journal compare with 2157 documents published in Scopus databases. Both the top productive journal indexed in WOS, and Scopus databases were published more than 100 papers. The greatest number of thyroid cancer documents published in Thyroid Journal (Impact factors 5.309, 2019), (n = 661) in WOS, and (n = 635) documents in Scopus, followed closely by the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (Impact factor 5.399, 2019) (n = 435) in WOS, and (n = 443) in Scopus database. The results show that the top 10 journals published documents in thyroid cancer research have impact factors more than 2 (Table 8).
Table 8 The top 10 Journals published article related to thyroid cancer research. | ||||||||
R | Web of Sciences data | Scopus meta data | ||||||
1st | Sources of Journal, n (1114) | NP | (%) | IF (2019) | Journal, n (1653) | NP | (%) | IF (2019) |
2nd | Thyroid | 661 | 7.29 | 5.309 (Q1) | Thyroid | 635 | 6.15 | 5.309 (Q1) |
3rd | Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism | 435 | 4.8 | 5.399 (Q1) | Journal of clinical endocrinology and Metabolism | 443 | 4.29 | 5.399 (Q1) |
4th | Surgery | 188 | 2.07 | 3.356 (Q1) | Endocrine-related Cancer | 173 | 1.68 | 4.8 (Q1) |
5th | Endocrine-related Cancer | 175 | 1.93 | 4.8 (Q1) | Clinical Nuclear Medicine | 163 | 1.58 | 6.622 (Q1) |
6th | Clinical Endocrinology | 134 | 1.48 | 3.38 (Q2) | Clinical Endocrinology | 137 | 1.33 | 3.38 (Q2) |
7th | Endocrine | 126 | 1.39 | 3.235 (Q3) | Endocrine | 129 | 1.25 | 3.235 (Q3) |
8th | PLOS ONE | 117 | 1.29 | 2.74 (Q2) | Journal of Endocrinological Investigation | 126 | 1.22 | 3.397 (Q2) |
9th | Journal of Endocrinological Investigation | 115 | 1.27 | 3.397 (Q2) | Oncotarget | 120 | 1.16 | 5.168 (Q1) |
10th | World Journal of Surgery | 115 | 1.27 | 2.234 (Q2) | PLOS ONE | 119 | 1.15 | 2.74 (Q2) |
Note: R: Rank, NP: Number of publications, IF: Impact factor, Q: Quartile range |
Co-authorship networks visualization
The visualizations of co-authorship networks for publication indexed in Scopus metadata shows 281 items which presented in 15 clusters with 2890 links, and total link strength 10404 scores. Among the presented authors are Elisei R. published 95 documents with 6636 citations score and total link strength 413, followed by Tuttle RM published 128 documents with 16136 citation score and total length strength 314 (Figure 4A). Overall author’s networks in WOS metadata were presented in 13 clusters with 548 link score and total link strength 3216 score. The high authors outcome based on the total link strength were Tuttle RM published 96 documents, with 12197 citations score, and total length strength 209, followed by Antonelli Alessandro published 52 documents, with 1146 citations score and total length strength 117 (Figure 4B).
Top 50 authors key words on thyroid cancer
The top 50 authors keywords on thyroid cancer were analyzed using the word cloud visualizations indexed in WOS and Scopus metadata. Among the 9582 Author’s Keywords, only the top 50 keywords indexed in WOS metadata are shown in the word cloud network. The analysis shows thyroid cancer were frequency presented more than 2221 time, followed by papillary thyroid cancer 527 time, differentiated thyroid cancer 521 times, and thyroid neoplasms 229 times, prognosis 210 times, thyroglobulin 208 times, thyroid carcinoma 183 times, papillary thyroid carcinoma 168 times, medullary thyroid cancer 161 times, and lymph node metastasis 53 times (Figure 5A). The same indexed author’s keyword was shown in Scopus word cloud visualization map (Figure 5B).
The incidence rate of thyroid cancer has been rising rapidly worldwide in recent decades; however, its trend remains unclear[4]. Bibliometrics may quantitatively monitor research performance in science and present predictions[24]. In the present study, 10689 documents relating to TC were retrieved from Scopus, and 9063 documents from WOS, dramatic growth in the global publication number on TC research was observed from 1991-2020. This was consistent with the increase in the incidence of thyroid cancer worldwide. Environmental and lifestyle factors (e.g., radiation, iodine intake, and nitrates), and chronic lymphocytic thyroiditis were possible causes for thyroid cancer incidence[15]. The increase in the incidence may be attributable to the widespread use of imaging studies, such as ultrasounds, computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and positron emission tomography scans, that incidentally detect thyroid nodules[25].
In terms of country analysis, USA, China, Italy and South Korea were the leading countries in thyroid cancer publications in the world. It was highly associated with the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of these countries. The previous study showed that the number of new cases of thyroid cancer and thyroid cancer-related deaths was estimated to be 62,450 and 1950 in 2015, respectively, in the USA[26]. Therefore, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in the United States and the University of Pisa in Italy are the leading institute in TC research at the global level. Similarly, among the top funding agencies contributed in thyroid cancer research the first three rank agencies were from USA (United States Department of Health Human Services, National Institutes of Health NIH USA, and NIH national Cancer Institute NCI). Among all institute’s division of medicine, and Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology were contributed more than 85% of the publications.
In terms of journals, we observed that the Journal of Thyroid published far more TC research papers, followed by the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. The thyroid is a medical journal in the field of endocrinology, covering research on thyroid cancer and all thyroid-related diseases. It is the official journal of the American Thyroid Association and published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., with an impact factor of 7.78. The most active authors were Wang Y and Tuttle RM, some of their highly cited research focus are on thyroid carcinoma[27], controversial issues in thyroid cancer management[28], and risk stratification in differentiated thyroid cancer from detection to final follow up[29]. Analysis of top ten cited articles showed that Revised American Thyroid Association Management Guidelines for Patients with Thyroid Nodules and Differentiated Thyroid Cancer authored by Cooper DS et al., published in 2009 was the most cited article, which indicated that these guidelines might be classic and fundamental for further studies and should be read by any scientist in the field of thyroid cancer.
As shown in the bibliometric mapping of keywords, the most occurrence authors keywords retrieved were thyroid cancer, papillary thyroid cancer, and differentiated thyroid cancer. Differentiated thyroid cancer, which includes papillary and follicular histologies, is a common malignancy and is increasing in incidence. Previous studies indicated that the increase in thyroid cancer was attributed mainly to papillary thyroid cancer, which accounts for 88% of all thyroid malignancies[10,12]. It was proposed that the increased incidence of papillary thyroid cancer was attributed to the enhanced diagnostic detection in recent years[30]. Therefore, the governments in the developing world should pay more attention to thyroid cancer research and provide more manpower and supported materials. This study represents a useful tool for scientists and public health policy makers in planning and organizing scientific program for the treatment of thyroid cancer.
CONCLUSIONS
This study demonstrates that the literature on TC was continuously growing. USA and China made the largest contribution in TC research. Research direction in TC was papillary thyroid cancer and differentiated thyroid cancer. The efforts should be made by the developed countries to help developing countries with the highest prevalence of TC.
1. Xing M. Molecular pathogenesis and mechanisms of thyroid cancer. Nat Rev Cancer. 2013; 13(3): 184-199. [DOI: 10.1038/nrc3431].
2. Carling T, Udelsman R. Thyroid cancer. Annu Rev Med. 2014; 65: 125-137. [DOI: 10.1146/annurev-med-061512-105739.
3. Nguyen QT, Lee EJ, Huang MG, Park YI, Khullar A, Plodkowski RA. Diagnosis and treatment of patients with thyroid cancer. Am Health Drug Benefits. 2015; 8(1): 30-40.
4. Mao Y, Xing M. Recent incidences and differential trends of thyroid cancer in the USA. Endocr Relat Cancer. 2016; 23(4): 313-322. [DOI: 10.1530/ERC-15-0445].
5. Du L, Wang Y, Sun X, et al. Thyroid cancer: trends in incidence, mortality and clinical-pathological patterns in Zhejiang Province, Southeast China. BMC Cancer. 2018; 18(1): 291. Published 2018 Mar 15. [DOI: 10.1186/s12885-018-4081-4087]
6. Colonna M, Uhry Z, Guizard AV, et al. Recent trends in incidence, geographical distribution, and survival of papillary thyroid cancer in France. Cancer Epidemiol. 2015; 39(4): 511-518. [DOI: 10.1016/j.canep.2015.04.015]
7. Wang Y, Wang W. Increasing incidence of thyroid cancer in Shanghai, China, 1983-2007. Asia Pac J Public Health. 2015; 27(2): NP223-NP229. [DOI: 10.1177/1010539512436874].
8. Topstad D, Dickinson JA. Thyroid cancer incidence in Canada: a national cancer registry analysis. CMAJ Open. 2017; 5(3): E612-E616. [DOI: 10.9778/cmajo.20160162]
9. Elham Goodarzi, Alireza Moslem, Hossein Feizhadad, Alireza Mosavi Jarrahi, Hossein Ali Adineh, Malihe Sohrabivafa, Zaher Khazaei. Epidemiology, incidence and mortality of thyroid cancer and their relationship with the human development index in the world: An ecology study in 2018. Adv. Hum. Biol. 2019; 9: 162-167. [DOI: 10.4103/AIHB.AIHB_2_19].
10. Zhang C, Li Y, Li J, Chen X. Total thyroidectomy versus lobectomy for papillary thyroid cancer: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Medicine (Baltimore). 2020; 99(6): e19073. [DOI: 10.1097/MD.0000000000019073].
11. Lim H, Devesa SS, Sosa JA, Check D, Kitahar CM. Trends in Thyroid Cancer Incidence and Mortality in the United States, 1974-2013. JAMA2017; 317(13): 1338-1348. [DOI: 10.1001/jama.2017.2719]
12. Buj R, Mallona I, Díez-Villanueva A, et al. Kallikreins Stepwise Scoring Reveals Three Subtypes of Papillary Thyroid Cancer with Prognostic Implications. Thyroid. 2018; 28(5): 601-612. [DOI: 10.1089/thy.2017.0501]
13. Elisei R. Molecularprofilesofpapillarythyroidtumorshave been changing in the last decades: how could we explain it.J. Clin.Endocrinol.Metab. 2014; 99: 412-414. [DOI: 10.1210/jc.2014-1130].
14. Shah JP.Thyroid Carcinoma: Epidemiology, Histology, and Diagnosis. Clin. Adv. Hematol. Oncol 2015; 13(4): 3-6.
15. Liu Y, Su L,XiaoH. Review of Factors Related to the Thyroid Cancer Epidemic.Inter. Int J Endocrinol. 2017; 2017: 5308635. [DOI: 10.1155/2017/5308635. Epub 2017 May 2.
16. Smallridge RC,AinKB, AsaSL, BibleKC, Brierley JD, BurmanKD, Kebebew E, Lee NY, Nikiforov YE, Rosenthal MS, Shah MH, Shaha AR, Tuttle RM. American thyroid association guide lines for management of patients with anaplastic thyroid cancer.Thyroid 2012; 22: 1104-1139. [DOI: 10.1089/thy.2012.0302].
17. Ma M, Lin B, Wang M, Liang X,Su L, Okose O, Lv W, Li J. Immunotherapy in anaplastic thyroid cancer. Am J Transl Res. 2020; 12(3): 974-988. Published 2020 Mar 15. [PMID: 32269728]
18. Shokoohi A, Berthelet E, Gill S, Prisman E, Adam T,White A, Wiseman SM, Wu J, Ho C. Treatment for Recurrent Differentiated Thyroid Cancer: A Canadian Population Based Experience.Cureus. 2020; 12(2): e7122. [DOI: 10.7759/cureus.7122].
19. Geaney F,Scutaru C, Kelly C, Glynn RW,Perry IJ. Type 2 Diabetes Research Yield, 1951-2012: Bibliometrics Analysis and Density Equalizing Mapping. PLoS ONE 2015; 10(7): e0133009. [DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0133009].
20. Lavis JN, Posada FB, Haines A, et al. Use of research to inform public policymaking.Lancet 2004; 364: 1615-21. [DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(04)17317-0].
21. Lewison G, Purushotham A, Mason M, McVie G, Sullivan R.Understanding the impact of public policy on cancer research: A bibliometric approach. European Journal of Cancer2010, 46(5), 912-919. [DOI: 10.1016/j.ejca.2009.12.020].
22. Bhutani G, Verma P,Kalra S. Bibliometric analysis of thyroid research and practice. Thyroid Res. Pract 2014; 11(1): 17-21. [DOI: 10.4103/0973-0354.124189].
23. Van Eck NJ, Waltman L. Software survey: VOSviewer, a computer program for bibliometric mapping. Scientometrics 2010, 84(2): 523-538. [DOI: 10.1007/s11192-009-0146-3].
24. Tijssen RJ, Winnink J. Twenty-first century macro-trends in the institutional fabric of science: bibliometric monitoring and analysis. Scientometrics. 2016; 109(3): 2181-2194.
25. Knox MA. Thyroid nodules. Am Fam Physician. 2013; 88: 193-196. [DOI: 10.1007/s11192-016-2041-z].
26. Howlader N, Noone AM, Krapcho M, Miller D, Bishop K, Altekruse SF, Kosary CL, Yu M, Ruhl J, Tatalovich Z, Mariotto A, Lewis DR, Chen HS, Feuer EJ CK (eds). SEER Cancer Statistics Review 1975-2013 National Cancer Institute SEER Cancer Statistics Review 1975-2013 National Cancer Institute. SEER Cancer Stat Rev 1975-2013, Natl Cancer Institute Bethesda, MD, http//seer.cancer.gov/csr/1975_2013/, based Novemb 2015 SEER data submission, posted to SEER web site, April 2016. Published online 2016.
27. Tuttle RM, Ball DW, Byrd D, Dilawari RA, Doherty GM, Duh Q, Ehya H, Farrar WB, Robert I Haddad, Kandeel F, Kloos RT, Kopp P, Lamonica DM, Loree TR, Lydiatt WM, McCaffrey JC, Jr OJA, Lee Parks, Ridge JA, Shah JP, Sherman SI, Sturgeon C, Waguespack SG, Wang TN, Wirth LJ, National Comprehensive Cancer Network. Thyroid carcinoma. J. Natl. Compr. Canc. Netw. 2010; 8(11): 1228-74. [DOI: 10.6004/jnccn.2010.0093].
28. Tuttle RM. Controversial Issues in Thyroid Cancer Management. Nucl. Med. 2018; 59(8): 1187-1194. [DOI: 10.2967/jnumed.117.192559].
29. Tuttle RM, Alzahrani AS. Risk Stratification in Differentiated Thyroid Cancer: From Detection to Final Follow-Up. J. Clin. Endocrinol. Metab. 2019; 104: 4087-4100. [DOI: 10.1210/jc.2019-00177].
30. Davies L, Welch HG. Current thyroid cancer trends in the United States. AMA Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg 2014; 140(4): 317-22. [DOI: 10.1001/jamaoto.2014.1].
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.