Global research trends on the links between intestinal microbiota and liver diseases: a bibliometric analysis

The number of articles on the relationships between the intestinal microbiota and liver diseases has continued to increase. The aim of this study was to assess publications on this topic, identify research hotspots, and predict trends of future research. Articles on this topic published from 2001 to 2021 were obtained from the Web of Science Core Collection. Bibliometric analysis and visualization were performed to identify research hotspots and trends with the use of the online bibliometric analysis platform, VOSviewer, and CiteSpace. In total, 4415 articles were included for bibliometric analysis. The annual output of research on this topic gradually increased over the past 21 years. China contributed the most publications (1254), while the United States was the core (centrality = 0.35) of the country-cooperation network and Schnabl B published the most articles (n = 80). High-frequency keywords included "gut microbiota", "inflammation", "obesity", "insulin resistance", "disease", "fatty liver disease", "metabolism", and "probiotics". The keywords that have burst in recent years include "intestinal microbiota", "dysbiosis", and "gut-liver axis". The relationships between dysbiosis of the intestinal microbiota and liver diseases, such as nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), are current research hotspots. Treatment for NAFLD, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, cirrhosis, and HCC via regulation of the intestinal microbiota is predicted as a research hotspot in the following years, especially immunotherapy for HCC. These findings should prove helpful to scholars to direct future research on the relationships between the intestinal microbiota and liver diseases.