Integrative oncology from a bibliometric point of view

The aim of this article is to analyze the development of integrative oncology from a bibliometric point of view. The publication and citation patterns of publications are analyzed and their contents mapped.

This study is based on bibliometric methods. The data sets consist of 7 025 respectively 4 990 publications over the time period 1966-2016, shown in PubMed and Web of Science.

The expansion of the numbers of these publications took place in the late 1990s/early 2000s. Research is dominated by authors located in the USA, China and Germany who are working at well-established research universities and university hospitals. The clinical share of publications is relatively small, and few studies are classified according to clinical phase. Content analysis revealed that much of the clinical research is based on surveys, and that content reflects the intersection of complementary therapies and cancer research. The latter aspect is less obvious in pre-clinical research. The most frequent journals in the material show a focus on complementary and alternative therapies or on integrative oncology, although journals focused on oncology or general/internal medicine were well-represented in the material as a whole. The most-cited publications were review articles and surveys.

Integrative oncology has been established as a small, but distinct, research domain. There are several signs of specialization in integrative oncology, but also in its integration into general medical and oncological research.