Development in biomarkers of breast cancer: a bibliometric analysis from 2011 to 2020

Breast cancer (BC) is a prevalent cancer all over the world. We conducted a bibliometric study to analyze global scientific results over the past 10 years, including the hotspots and frontiers of biomarker research in BC.

From 2011 to 2020, literature research from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) was performed. VOSviewer was applied to analyze and visualize the frontiers and hotspots related to biomarker research in BC.

13,680 papers were retrieved. There was an increasing number of annual publications (Np) related to biomarkers in BC during the past decade. The United States (US) published the greatest number of papers, which had the highest number of citations (Nc) and ranked first in terms of H-index. PLoS One and the University of Texas System were the most productive journals and affiliations, respectively. In 2014, Chetan Bettegowda published a paper with the world's highest global citation score (GCS). In recent years, keywords such as "expression", "microRNA", and "cell" have appeared most frequently. In addition, research related to COVID-19 in this field has become a hot topic in recent years. This bibliometric study found an increasing trend in publications related to biomarkers in British Columbia and the US was found to be an influential producer in this field.

In the past decade, most research has focused on basic and clinical studies, of which microRNAs (miRNAs) and circulating tumor DNAs (ctDNAs) associated with the inhibition and attenuation of BC have become the focus of recent research.