Mapping the intellectual structure and landscape of colorectal cancer immunotherapy: A bibliometric analysis

ABSTRACT

Immunotherapy, particularly immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICIs) therapy, stands as an innovative therapeutic approach currently garnering substantial attention in cancer treatment. It has become a focal point of numerous studies, showcasing significant potential in treating malignancies, including lung cancer and melanoma. The objective of this research is to analyze publications regarding immunotherapy for colorectal cancer (CRC), investigating their attributes and identifying the current areas of interest and cutting-edge advancements. We took into account the publications from 2002 to 2022 included in the Web of Science Core Collection. Bibliometric analysis and visualization were conducted using CiteSpace, VOSviewer, R-bibliometrix, and Microsoft Excel. The quantity of publications associated with this domain has been steadily rising over the years, encompassing 3753 articles and 1498 reviews originating from 573 countries and regions, involving 19,166 institutions, 1011 journals, and 32,301 authors. In this field, China, the United States, and Italy are the main countries that come forward for publishing. The journal with the greatest impact factor is CA-A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. Romain Cohen leads in the number of publications, while Le Dt stands out as the most influential author. The immune microenvironment and immune infiltration are emerging as key hotspots and future research directions in this domain. This research carries out an extensive bibliometric examination of immunotherapy for colorectal cancer, aiding researchers in understanding current focal points, investigating possible avenues for research, and recognizing forthcoming development trends.

KEYWORDS:

• Colorectal cancer
• immunotherapy
• bibliometric study
• research trends
• VOSviewer
• CiteSpace

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Si-fang Zhang contributed to the conceptualization and design of the study.

Qin-ling Ou and Yong-long Chang contributed to the conceptualization of the study, implementation of the research, and statistical analysis of the data. Jin-hui Liu collected and organized the data. Hai-xia Yan designed and produced the figures and tables. Lin-zi Chen and Duan-yang Guo completed the manuscript writing. All authors participated in the manuscript revision and read and approved the final manuscript for submission.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Research projects of Natural Science Foundation of Changsha (No. 2022467), Hunan Provincial Clinical Medical Research Center Project (No. 2023SK4048) and Hunan Shennong talent funding project.