Therapeutic hypothermia for neonates: a bibliometric analysis and visualization research

Therapeutic hypothermia is an important treatment for cerebral protection and has a positive effect on neonatal encephalopathy. This study aims to analyze the research hotspots and frontiers of therapeutic hypothermia for neonates through bibliometric analysis and visualization research.

The articles and reviews on therapeutic hypothermia for neonates were identified from the Web of Science Core Collection (WOSCC) database on October 18, 2024. CiteSpace and VOSviewer were used to analyze the countries/regions, institutions, authors, journals, references, and author keywords.

A total of 1,199 articles were retrieved from 378 institutions in 75 countries/regions. The annual number of publications and citations showed an upward trend in this field. Massaro, An N. N., and Shankaran. S. were the key authors who had most publications and citations. Pediatric Research was the most popular journal in the field, Pediatrics was the most influential. All the author keywords were divided into 12 clusters, and "hypoxia-ischemia encephalopathy," "therapeutic hypothermia" and "perinatal asphyxia" were high-frequency keywords in this field. Keyword burst shows that "childhood outcome," "neonatal seizure," "preterm," and "risk factors" were important aspects of research in recent years.

The present study is the first to apply bibliometric analysis to explore therapeutic hypothermia for neonates, aiming to identify research hotspots and frontiers in this field. In recent years, research on therapeutic hypothermia for neonates has rapidly increased, with therapeutic hypothermia for perinatal asphyxia neonates being a research hotspot. To improve the neurological prognosis of neonates, more researches focused on how to expand the benefits of the neonatal population and enhance neuroprotective effects. It may provide future research directions for neonatal experts.