Hypercoagulability in Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Bibliometric Analysis and Retrospective Data Mining Study.

Area of Science:

• Rheumatology
• Hematology
• Immunology

Background:

• Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease causing chronic inflammation, joint damage, and functional loss.
• RA progression is linked to coagulation-fibrinolysis system abnormalities, resulting in a hypercoagulable state.
• Limited bibliometric and visualization analyses exist for RA hypercoagulability research.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the knowledge structure, research status, and trends in RA hypercoagulability using bibliometrics.
• To evaluate inflammatory and coagulation markers for RA disease activity assessment via retrospective data mining.

Main Methods:

• Bibliometric analysis of 957 English articles and reviews on RA hypercoagulability (2010-2023) from Web of Science Core Collection.
• Knowledge mapping using VOSviewer and CiteSpace for countries, institutions, journals, authors, and keywords.
• Retrospective analysis of RA patient data to correlate inflammatory/coagulation markers with the Chinese patient-reported activity index for rheumatoid arthritis (CPRI-RA).

Main Results:

• The United States led in publications and h-index; Karolinska Institute was the most prolific institution.
• Key research themes included inflammation, activation, disease activity, and risk, with recent focus on criteria, validation, coagulation, target, and anemia.
• Inflammatory markers (RF, ESR, CRP) and coagulation markers (PLT, DD) were elevated in RA patients; FBG, CRP, and ESR correlated with CPRI-RA and were independent risk factors.

Conclusions:

• Hypercoagulability in RA, including its mechanisms and applications, is a recent research focus.
• Inflammation and coagulation markers are identified as independent risk factors for RA disease activity (CPRI-RA).