Bibliometric analysis of research relating to radiation-induced lung injury [2001-2020]

Radiotherapy is one of the common means of cancer treatment, especially in the treatment of lung cancer. However, radiation therapy can cause lung tissue radiation lung injury. The study of this disease can reduce its incidence and avoid the occurrence of radiation pulmonary fibrosis. In the past 20 years, the study of radiation-induced lung injury (RILI) has attracted more attention. This paper extracts the main text information of RILI-related literature from WOSCC database from 2001 to 2020, uses Citespace and VOSviewer for visual analysis, and presents the results. We found that in the past 20 years, there have been 4,665 articles on RILI, and the number of articles published reached a peak in 2017. The United States is the main leader in this research field, among which UNIV Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center has published many research results in this field. The most active author is Liao Zhongxing, and the most influential journal is Int J Radiat Oncol, which provides a platform for scholars in related fields to publish their articles. Current research focuses mainly on randomized controlled trials related to RILI, the relationship between dose-volume histogram analysis and RILI formation, the protection of normal lung tissue, the effect of stereoscopic radiotherapy on RILI and the pathogenesis of RILI. In the study of the formation mechanism of RILI, the main research directions include the apoptosis mechanism of epithelial and endothelial cells, cytokine cascade theory, immune mechanism regulation process, oxidative stress mechanism, etc.