Research trends and hotspots of nanomaterials in inflammatory bowel disease: a bibliometric analysis

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic and nonspecific gastrointestinal disorder, imposing significant physical, emotional, and economic burdens on patients. In recent years, nanomaterials have shown great potential in the management of IBD. This study employs bibliometric analysis to map global research trends and intellectual landscapes in nanomaterials application for IBD.

A comprehensive search was conducted on the Web of Science Core Collection database for studies pertaining to nanomaterials and IBD. Bibliometric and visual analysis of the included publications were facilitated by the utilization of Bibliometrix R, VOSviewer and CiteSpace software.

A total of 879 studies were included. China, the United States, and Germany are the leading countries in this field. Georgia State University emerged as the most productive institution, while Didier Merlin and Zhang Mingzhen were identified as influential core authors. International Journal of Pharmaceutics was the most productive journal, and Journal of Controlled Release was the most cited journal. Keyword analysis highlighted "drug delivery," "gut microbiota," "reactive oxygen species" and "anti-inflammation" as dominant research frontiers, with burst keywords such as "polymeric nanoparticles" and "gut microbiotasignaling emerging trends.

These findings underscore nanomaterials' transformative potential in IBD management, particularly in targeted therapies and microbiome modulation, while emphasizing the need for interdisciplinary collaboration to address clinical translation challenges.