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Updated: Jul 6, 2025
TBase - an Integrated Electronic Health Record and Research Database for Kidney Transplant Recipients
Published on: April 13, 2021
Clinical Research in Renal Transplantation: A Bibliometric Perspective on a Half-century of Innovation and Progress
Decan Jiang1,2, Anna Mantas2, Alexander Studier-Fischer3
1Department of Surgery, Campus Charité Mitte/Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany.
Background:
Groundbreaking biomedical research has transformed renal transplantation (RT) into a widespread clinical procedure that represents the mainstay of treatment for end-stage kidney failure today. Here, we aimed to provide a comprehensive bibliometric perspective on the last half-century of innovation in clinical RT.
Methods:
The Web of Science Core Collection was used for a comprehensive screening yielding 123 303 research items during a 50-y period (January 1973-October 2022). The final data set of the 200 most-cited articles was selected on the basis of a citation-based strategy aiming to minimize bias.
Results:
Studies on clinical and immunological outcomes (n = 63 and 48), registry-based epi research (n = 38), and randomized controlled trials (n = 35) dominated the data set. Lead US authors have signed 110 of 200 articles. The overall level of evidence was high, with 84% of level1 and -2 reports. Highest numbers of these articles were published in New England Journal of Medicine , Transplantation , and American Journal of Transplantation. Increasing trend was observed in the number of female authors in the postmillennial era (26% versus 7%).
Conclusions:
This study highlights important trends in RT research of the past half-century. This bibliometric perspective identifies the most intensively researched areas and shift of research interests over time; however, it also describes important imbalances in distribution of academic prolificacy based on topic, geographical aspects, and gender.
