Publication trends in sarcoma research: A bibliometric analysis.

Abstract

e23530 Background: Sarcomas are rare primary malignant tumors originating from connective tissue, worldwide research trends on this topic are unclear. We conducted a bibliometric analysis of the 100 most influential articles on sarcoma. Methods: We sourced the literature published in academic journals indexed by the Scopus Database. Using the key words “sarcoma,” “soft-tissue tumor,” “bone sarcoma,” “soft-tissue sarcoma,” “connective tissue malignancy.” A list of the 100 most-cited articles were extracted and sorted by number of citations, excluding articles related to Kaposi’s Sarcoma. The papers were checked independently by our authors for accuracy of topic. R was used to extract the publishing journal, year of publication, country of origin, affiliated institutions, authors, and total citations. Results: The total number of citations for 100 articles was 73,483. Citations for individual articles ranged from 453 to 3,064, with a median of 588 (IQR: 341).The United States contributed the most papers (n = 70), followed by France and the United Kingdom (n = 5). Most articles, 67, were published prior to the 21st century and only 3 were in the last 10 years. The most cited study was Malkin et al.’s Germ line p53 mutations in a familial syndrome of breast cancer, sarcomas, and other neoplasms with 3,064 citations. Of the top 10, 8 were published between 1978 and 1998. Journal of Clinical Oncology made the greatest number of contribution to the research on sarcoma with a total of 18 articles (citations = 12,166), followed by Cancer with 15 (citations = 9,052), and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States with 10 (citations = 8,431). The median Scopus CiteScore for publishing journals was 19.7, the highest being The Lancet (115.3) and The Iowa Orthopaedic Journal with the lowest score (1.5). Conclusions: Within the United States, the institutions producing the most literature were the NCI and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. The majority of the 100 most cited studies are cited an average of 735 times, indicating that these sources are providing a substantial foundation for emerging research in the field. This begs the question of the quality and relevance of evidence in the literature, given the amount of citations. The Lancet produced literature with the highest journalistic impact, having a CiteScore of 115.3 based on Scopus metrics. While the majority of the 100 most cited pieces of literature (67%) on sarcomas were published prior the 21st century, a small portion, eight, were produced in the last decade. This information could indicate either a lull in the frequency of research being conducted, or an effort on the part of institutions to create more substantial investigations that provide more valuable contributions to the field of research in sarcomas. We hope to continue seeing the field of sarcoma expand with new advances in its management.