Emerging trends in photodynamic therapy for head and neck cancer: A 10-year bibliometric analysis based on CiteSpace

Head and neck cancer (HNC) was the seventh most common cancer worldwide. Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a clinically approved, minimally invasive treatment, which was shown to be effective in the treatment of head and neck cancer and potentially malignant disorders. We used a bibliometric analysis to analyze the publications of radiomics in oncology to clearly illustrate the current situation and future trends and encourage more researchers to participate in radiomics research in oncology.

Publications for Photodynamic therapy in for head and neck cancer and potentially malignant disorders were downloaded from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC). CiteSpace was used for a bibliometric analysis of countries, institutions, journals, authors, keywords, and references pertaining to this field. The state of research and areas of focus were analyzed through burst detection.

A total of 1002 studies were used for analysis on CiteSpace. The USA is in first place by number of publications. Hopper C, was the most prolific author, and the author with the most citations was Chen XY. Among the journals and the co-cited journals, "Photodiagnosis and Photodynamic Therapy" was the first. "Nanoparticle" showed the highest burst strength level and materials research is major area of focus in this field.

This bibliometric analysis of photodynamic therapy in head and neck cancer, provides a visual analysis of publications in this field. The conclusion of the current research in this field was that it focused on the research of photosensitizers, particularly nanomaterials and targeted therapies.