Bibliometric Insight Into Thyroid Cancer Research: A Comprehensive Review and Future Directions.

Abstract

In the past 3 decades, thyroid cancer research has surged, becoming the leading topic in clinical thyroidology. Despite this, there's a lack of data identifying key articles, authors, and journals. This study aims to provide insights for authors, physicians, and research labs by highlighting the most influential journals, authors, and research topics in thyroid cancer. A comprehensive search was conducted using the Scopus database, employing the medical subject heading (MeSH) terms "Thyroid" and "Cancer" in the titles, abstracts, or keywords of articles. The search was limited to English articles in academic medicine journals published between January 1993 and December 2021. The search yielded 21472 articles across 3076 journals, authored by 13974 senior authors. The number of journals publishing on thyroid cancer expanded from 29 in 1993 to 733 in 2021, marking an average annual growth of 14%. Article output on the topic increased from 54 in the initial year to 1580 by 2021, with an annual growth rate of 16%. A thematic analysis revealed 369 articles mentioning "BRAF" since 2004, 479 articles on "ultrasound" techniques, 325 on "ablation" methods, and 453 articles focusing on "genetics" in thyroid cancer. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism emerged as the most prolific, publishing 1017 articles over the 29-year period. This study guides resource allocation towards impactful journals for thyroid cancer researchers, helps identify key contributors for collaboration or mentorship, and provides a framework for similar analyses in other fields.