Trend in H₂S Biology and Medicine Research-A Bibliometric Analysis

The biological and medical importance of hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) has been recognized for decades. The aim of this bibliometric study is to analyze the quantity and quality of publications in H₂S biology and medicine (H₂SBM) based on the databases of Web of Science and Google Scholar. A total of 5881 publications published between 1990 and 2016 were analyzed. The number of H₂SBM papers published before 2004 was below 100 annually, but thereafter this number rapidly increased and peaked in 2015 with more than 7-fold increase. All publications related to H₂SBM research achieved a total h-index of 136 and were cited 123,074 times. The most published disciplines in H₂S biomedicine research were the cardiovascular system (8.5%), neuroscience (6.5%), and gastroenterology hepatology (4.7%). The country with the greatest number of publications in the H₂SBM research field was the USA with 1765 (30.0%) publications, followed by China with 995 (16.9%) publications and Japan with 555 (9.4%) publications. The top 3 most published institutes were National University of Singapore, Peking University in China, and University of Groningen in Netherlands. Nitric Oxide Biology and Chemistry was the most exploited journal for H₂SBM publications with 461 articles, followed by FASEB Journal with 200 publications and Antioxidants Redox Signaling with 116 publications. The most highly cited publications and researchers in H₂SBM research were also unmasked from this bibliometric analysis. Collectively, H₂SBM publications exhibit a continuous trend of increase, reflecting the increased H₂SBM research intensity and diversity globally.