Holter electrocardiogram research trends and hotspots: bibliometrics and visual analysis

With the help of metrology, we can identify research hotspots and development trends in dynamic electrocardiography, and thereby provide corresponding reference material to aid further theoretical research.

All research data derived from the core collection of Web of Science, and all searches were completed on the same day (February 6, 2022). The obtained data were stored in plain text format and imported into CiteSpace for subsequent analysis. Citation analysis and visualization technology were used to draw a visual map of the research elements, using factors such as annual literature volume, country, journal, author, abstract, keywords, and citation.

After screening, 2,937 papers were obtained. Research on ambulatory electrocardiography is increasing worldwide every year. Using research hotspots, keyword-clustering time-zone maps, and high-frequency emerging words, the research in this field was roughly divided into two stages, with 2017 as the divider. The first stage primarily focuses on areas such as atrial fibrillation, stroke, autonomic nerve function, catheter ablation, and T-wave alternation. The second stage saw the focus shift to wearable devices, sudden cardiac death, obstructive sleep apnea, feature extraction, cryptogenic stroke, and similar topics.

With the development of various wearable technologies, the daily monitoring of healthy people engaged in sporting activities and the development of innovative analysis algorithms providing more accurate data may represent the hotspots and direction of future research.