Publication Landscape Analysis on Gliomas: How Much Has Been Done in the Past 25 Years?

Area of Science:

• Neuro-oncology
• Bibliometrics
• Machine Learning

Background:

• Gliomas are challenging cancers despite a significant increase in research publications over 25 years.
• Understanding the evolution of glioma research is crucial for identifying knowledge gaps and future directions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the research landscape of glioma over the past 25 years (1994-2018) using bibliometric and machine learning techniques.
• To identify trends in publication volume, research topics, and areas requiring further investigation.

Main Methods:

• Downloaded 52,625 glioma-related publications from PubMed (1994-2018).
• Extracted metadata (title, date, MeSH terms, abstract) for bibliometric analysis.
• Applied Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) to abstracts for topic modeling.

Main Results:

• Research on glioblastoma prognosis and treatment shows the highest growth in volume and publication rate.
• Clinical trials constitute less than 5% of the total publications.
• Current research predominantly covers clinical, pre-clinical, biological, and technical aspects, with less focus on psychological effects and end-of-life care.

Conclusions:

• Glioma research has expanded rapidly, with a strong emphasis on molecular basis, survival, and treatment outcomes.
• There is a need for increased research into the psychological impact of glioblastoma and palliative/end-of-life care.