Hotspots and trends in gastric cancer stem cell research: a visualization and bibliometric analysis

Gastric cancer (GC) is a type of malignant tumor that seriously endangers human health. As the understanding of the mechanisms underlying gastric cancer deepens, in recent years, investigations on gastric cancer stem cells (GCSCs) have garnered significant interest. They are pivotal in the onset, progression, recurrence, and pharmacoresistance of GC. Comprehensive research on GCSCs is expected to provide new strategies for the diagnosis and treatment of GC. This article endeavors to comprehensively assess the current status and future trends of GCSCs research through bibliometric analysis, thereby providing a valuable reference for further in - depth studies in this field.

English - language academic journals related to GCSCs research in the Web of Science database were retrieved. Subsequently, VOSviewer was utilized to conduct network collinear analysis of the exported source institutions, literature authors, references, and keywords. And CiteSpace was used to perform statistical analysis of the annual publication count, keyword clustering, references, and keyword burst.

A total of 3882 documents that met the criteria were incorporated. The quantity of published papers has shown a consistent upward trend annually since 2003. Among the authors of the literature, multiple stable core author groups represented by Zhu, Wei, Wang, Mei, Xu, Wenrong, etc. have been formed. There are 335 associated institutions in total. The Japan National Cancer Center has the strongest relevance and the largest number of published papers. There are 7 clustering labels formed among the keywords, including main clustering modules such as activation, cancer stem cells, DNA content aneuploidy, and expression. 25 burst keywords were generated, and the burst keywords in the past two years include mesenchymal stem cells, drug resistance, proliferation, etc. The emergence of references indicates that eight references have been cited up to now and are the focus of current research.

The research overview of GCSCs in the past 30 years was visually presented by visual maps. In the past decade, scholars' research in this field has gradually intensified, and the development trend is good. Through the deeper study of the GCSCs mechanism, intervention GCSCs in the future will be a new promising treatment approach for GC patients. This hot topic still deserves more attention in the future.