Publication trends of artificial intelligence in retina in 10 years: Where do we stand?

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been applied in the field of retina. The purpose of this study was to analyze the study trends within AI in retina by reporting on publication trends, to identify journals, countries, authors, international collaborations, and keywords involved in AI in retina.

A cross-sectional study. Bibliometric methods were used to evaluate global production and development trends in AI in retina since 2012 using Web of Science Core Collection.

A total of 599 publications were retrieved ultimately. We found that AI in retina is a very attractive topic in scientific and medical community. No journal was found to specialize in AI in retina. The USA, China, and India were the three most productive countries. Authors from Austria, Singapore, and England also had worldwide academic influence. China has shown the greatest rapid increase in publication numbers. International collaboration could increase influence in this field. Keywords revealed that diabetic retinopathy, optical coherence tomography on multiple diseases, algorithm were three popular topics in the field. Most of top journals and top publication on AI in retina were mainly focused on engineering and computing, rather than medicine.

These results helped clarify the current status and future trends in researches of AI in retina. This study may be useful for clinicians and scientists to have a general overview of this field, and better understand the main actors in this field (including authors, journals, and countries). Researches are supposed to focus on more retinal diseases, multiple modal imaging, and performance of AI models in real-world clinical application. Collaboration among countries and institutions is common in current research of AI in retina.