Global research trends in COVID-19 with MRI and PET/CT: a scoping review with bibliometric and network analyses

To identify and evaluate the indexed studies that allow us to understand the implications of imaging studies in MRI and PET/CT related to COVID-19 research.

Scoping review. Articles in PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science (WoS) were scanned from 2019 to 2021 with COVID-19, MRI, and PET-CT as keywords. EndNote software and manual checking removed the duplicated references. Our assessment includes citation, bibliometric, keyword network, and statistical analyses using descriptive statistics and correlations. Highlighted variables were publication year, country, journals, and authorship.

Only 326 papers were included. The most cited article reached 669 cites; this number represented 21.71% of 3081 citations. The top-15 cited authors received 1787 citations, which represented 58% of the total cites. These authors had affiliations from ten countries (Belgium, China, France, Italy, Japan, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom (UK), and the USA). The top-30 journals were cited 2762 times, representing 89.65% of the total cites. Only five journals were cited more than 100 times; Int J Infect Dis had the most significant number of citations (674). Some of the unexpected keywords were encephalitis, stroke, microbleeds, myocarditis.

COVID-19 pandemic is still spreading worldwide, and the knowledge about its different facets continues advancing. MRI and PET/CT are being used in more than 50% of the selected studies; research trends span seven categories, no only the diagnostic but others like socio-economic impact and pathogenesis Developed countries had an advantage by having hospitals with more resources, including MRI and PET/CT facilities in the same institution to supplement basic assessment in patients with COVID-19.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40336-021-00460-x.