A bibliometric analysis of research on (R)-ketamine from 2002 to 2021

Anesthetic ketamine is a racemic mixture containing equal amount of (R)-ketamine and (S)-ketamine. Increasing preclinical data show that (R)-ketamine has a rapid-onset and sustained antidepressant without significant side effects. There are currently many studies on (R)-ketamine, however, the quantity and quality of these studies are unknown. Therefore, we conducted a bibliometric analysis of research on (R)-ketamine from January 2002 to December 2021. We obtained the publications on (R)-ketamine from the Web of Science database during the period. A variety of bibliographic elements were collected, including annual publications, authors, countries/regions, institutions, journals, and keywords. A total of 922 publications were included in this study. Professor Kenji Hashimoto of Chiba University in Japan was the most productively influential author in the field of (R)-ketamine and the authors from United States were the leader in this field. In addition, we found that the antidepressant effect of (R)-ketamine has been a hotspot in very recent years. This study provided a comprehensive analysis of research on (R)-ketamine and highlighted the growing interest in (R)-ketamine and its antidepressant effects.