Application of tissue engineering in wound healing: A 20-year bibliometric and visualized study

Tissue engineering has recently been shown to have a considerable advantage in promoting wound healing in clinical studies and animal models, with an increasing number of documents in designing and mechanism investigations. The lack of bibliometric analysis and knowledge mapping in this field would hinder comprehensive understanding of this field and the development of future research.

Our investigation into the application of tissue engineering in wound healing involved a search of the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC). To identify research hotspots and promising future trends in this field of study, we employed several software tools such as VOSviewer, CiteSpace, and R packages to evaluate the contribution and co-occurrence relationships across countries/regions, institutions, journals, authors, keywords, and references.

Ultimately, a total of 9820 documents were reviewed and analyzed. China emerged as the leading country in terms of productivity and influence in this particular field. Shanghai Jiao Tong University emerged as the top publisher, spearheading a group of prominent research institutions. Among journals, Biomaterials garnered the highest number of citations and co-citations, boasting impressive H-index, G-index, and M-index scores. Notably, Reis emerged as the most cited author, while Liu topped the list in terms of co-citations. Keyword and reference analyses unveiled 3 major research directions: natural endogenous technology involving multiple cells and functional factors, mechanism research on the practical application of tissue engineering technology in wound healing, and artificially synthesized and reprocessed exogenous technology. Among these, the latter represented the current focal point in the field.

This research offered a comprehensive outlook on the present status and prospective direction of tissue engineering in wound healing applications worldwide. A thorough evaluation was conducted on diverse tissue engineering techniques, furnishing profound perspectives for scholars and serving as a credible resource that propelled advancements in the field while piquing the curiosity of researchers.