Research trends on exercise and cancer pain relationships: a bibliometric analysis over the past three decades

The interplay between exercise and cancer pain management has gained growing research interest globally. This investigation employs bibliometric mapping and visualization techniques to delineate emerging trends and intellectual structure within this domain.

Relevant publications were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) (1900-2024) and analyzed using a suite of bibliometric tools, including CiteSpace, VOSviewer, the R package "bibliometrix," Microsoft Excel 2019, and an online analysis platform.

The analysis encompassed 2929 publications on exercise and cancer pain, produced by 15,771 authors from 3778 institutions across 90 countries, and published in 1039 journals. The United States (830), China (255), and Australia (203) emerged as the leading contributors, with the United States maintaining a dominant position. Key institutions included the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (49 publications) and the University of British Columbia (138.63 average citations per article). Supportive Care in Cancer was identified as the most influential journal in the field. Keywords such as "symptom management," "patient reported outcomes," "inventory," "case report," "model," "fear," "persistent pain," and "muscle strength" represented potential future research hotspots.

This bibliometric review confirms expanding scientific engagement with exercise-based cancer pain management. Research advancement requires multi-center studies, standardized metrics, and mechanistic exploration through biomarker-clinical correlation.