Abstract
BackgroundBreast cancer is one of the most common types of cancers affecting women worldwide. The main objective of this study was to assess and compare research activity in breast cancer in Arab countries with non-Arab Middle Eastern countries.MethodsPublications about “breast cancer” as a research topic were retrieved using the ISI Web of Science database. Analysis was confined to original research and review articles. Research productivity was assessed by assessing number of publications and time trend of these publications, names of journals, citation analysis, top 10 active institutions as well as country contribution to breast cancer research. The quantity and quality of publications from Arab countries in addition to 3 other Middle East countries (Turkey, Iran and Israel) were assessed and compared using the h-index tool.ResultsA total of 1658 original research and review articles about “breast cancer” were published from Arab countries. Annual research productivity from Arab countries in the field of “breast cancer” was negligible but showed a significant increase in the last decade. Retrieved documents had relatively high citation parameters as measured by h-index of 61 and average citations of 17.46 per document. The highest research productivity was from Egypt with a total publication of 582 (35.10%). Cairo University with a total of 149 (8.99%) publications had the highest research productivity among institutions in Arab world. Forty four documents (2.65%) of breast cancer documents were published in Saudi Medical Journal. Arab researchers collaborated mostly with researchers from the United States of America (305; 18.40%) in breast cancer research. Compared with other non-Arab Middle Eastern countries, Arab countries had higher research productivity than some countries and lower than others, particularly Israel.ConclusionsThe present data reveals a good contribution of some Arab countries to the field of “breast cancer” research. There is a gap between Arab countries and Israel in the quality of breast cancer research.
Highlights
Breast cancer is one of the most common types of cancers affecting women worldwide
The total number of worldwide publications in breast cancer retrieved from Arab countries was 1658 publications while worldwide number was 206,710
The first article about breast cancer co-authored by an Arab researcher was published in 1977 in Cancer Journal and the title of the article was: “Clinical and prognostic features of a rapidly progressing breast-cancer in Tunisia”
Summary
The main objective of this study was to assess and compare research activity in breast cancer in Arab countries with non-Arab Middle Eastern countries. Breast cancer is one of the most common types of cancers among women in the Arab world [1]. Research in general and in breast cancer in particular is important for each country in order to understand the cultural and genetic differences among different people in different geographical areas. Assessing research about breast cancer from Arab countries has an important impact on the future policies in the fight against such an Sweileh et al BMC Women's Health (2015) 15:25 high standards private hospitals and private medical colleges. The objective of this study was to assess publication trend in Arab countries in breast cancer and compare it with non-Arab Middle Eastern countries. Such study will give an insight into research activity and will encourage those in the field of breast cancer
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