Abstract
BackgroundThe five BRICS (Brazil, Russian, Indian, China and South Africa) countries bear a significant proportion of the world’s global cancer burden.AimThe aim of this paper is to map the scientific landscape related to colorectal cancer (CRC) research published related to South Africa (SA) and Brazil (BRA).MethodsWe used the bibliometric analysis technique to identify and map the scientific publications on CRC related to SA and BRA. We identified the document type, authors, research organisations, countries, funding sources, most relevant journals, research areas, citation reference counts, journal impact factor (IF) and open access designations in CRC scientific landscape for both countries. We analysed publications from January 2000 to August 2020 as indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection, most covering scientific medical related research and used descriptive statistical data analysis to synthesise the data.FindingsDuring the period 2000–2020, there were 80 and 176 peer-reviewed publications on CRC related to SA and BRA, respectively. The majority were original research articles. Sixty-six percent identified had a primary (first) author affiliated to SA research institution and 87% had primary author affiliated to the BRA research institution. Overall, 275 authors published CRC related to SA and 1,025 authors published CRC related to BRA. The leading research organisation in SA was the University of Witwatersrand (Wits, 26%) and was the University of Sao Paulo (23%) for in BRA. The publications, related to both countries, mostly focused on oncology. The South African Medical Journal (10%) produced the most articles for SA with IF = 1.285; and the Value in Health (7%) for BRA with IF = 1.736. The median cited reference count was 32 for SA publications and 34 for BRA publications. There were 49% and 39% of publications without any open access designations for SA and BRA, respectively.ConclusionsMapping CRC scientific publications highlighted potential benefits of developing an informed CRC national research plan in each country to promote concerted effort to better understand the risk factors, treatment and advocate for funding as stimulus for increased CRC research outputs that can inform policy development and influence practice to help reduce and control the CRC burden in both countries.
Highlights
The Global Cancer Observatory (2018) stated that the colorectal cancer (CRC) incidence rate, in South Africa (SA), is 14.4 per 100,000 populations, with the incidence rate of 7.3 and 7.1 per 100,000 for males and females, respectively
Publication costs for this article were supported by ecancer (UK Charity number 1176307)
Between 2000 and 2020, there were 80 and 176 peer-reviewed, scientific articles on CRC published with authors related to SA and BRA, respectively
Summary
The Global Cancer Observatory (2018) stated that the colorectal cancer (CRC) incidence rate, in South Africa (SA), is 14.4 per 100,000 populations, with the incidence rate of 7.3 and 7.1 per 100,000 for males and females, respectively It is the 5th most frequent cancer in SA and it is estimated that by year 2030, the number of new cases will increase by 39% while the number of deaths will increase by 40% in 2030 in SA [1]. Based on the GLOBOCAN country fact sheets, the five countries collectively have 46,3% of new CRC cases in 2020 (both sexes, all ages) As both countries are ranked among the upper middle income countries, changes in diet and lifestyles have been considered to increase the risk factors for non-communicable diseases (NCDs) [4, 5, 7]. The five BRICS (Brazil, Russian, Indian, China and South Africa) countries bear a significant proportion of the world’s global cancer burden
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