Inflammatory Bowel Disease and Novel Cell Death: Bibliometric Analysis and Study Trend Projections Based on Burst...

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), comprising Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC), is a chronic relapsing gastrointestinal inflammatory disorder, whose underlying mechanisms remain elusive. Novel cell death modalities such as ferroptosis and pyroptosis are implicated in its pathogenesis. This study employed bibliometric analysis to elucidate research trends in IBD and novel forms of cell death.

A total of 682 records were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection on 20 June 2024, using relevant keywords. Bibliometric analysis and visualisation were conducted with tools including Citespace, VOSviewer, the bibliometrix R package, Scimago Graphica, and an online bibliometric platform. Topic modelling was performed via the latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) algorithm, and burst detection was applied to forecast emerging research trends.

Over the past 20 years, there has been a remarkable increase in research output and influence in this field. The number of publications grew exponentially after 2019, and the median impact factor of highly cited papers also showed an upward trend. China and the United States were the major contributors. Chinese Academy of Sciences and Zhejiang University had the highest publication volumes among institutions. Key authors like Zhang Caiying and Markus F. Neurath were identified. Nature, Cell, and Gastroenterology were the most influential journals. Research focus evolved from traditional inflammatory mechanisms to diverse cell death mechanisms. Ten themes were identified through topic modelling, with their significance changing over time. MeSH and gene/protein/pathway analyses highlighted the importance of necroptosis, ferroptosis, and pyroptosis. Biclustering analysis explored specific research topics, and 22 gene/pathway/protein named entities with significant research potential were identified by burst detection.

This is the first bibliometric analysis of novel cell death in the context of IBD. It offers a holistic overview of research dynamics, trends, and hotspots in this field, which can enhance the comprehension of the field modalities and offer valuable guidance for future research. Future studies should focus on the interactions between different cell death forms and accelerate the translation of basic research findings into clinical applications.