Global trends and hotspots in research of cough variant asthma: a bibliometric and visual analysis from 2004 to 2024

The field of cough variant asthma (CVA) has seen rapid development, with a significant number of high-quality studies being published. To explore the evolution, key research trends, and future prospects of this field, a bibliometric and visualization analysis was conducted.

Publications concerning CVA were collected from the Web of Science Core Collection, and subsequently processed with VOSviewer 1.6.18, CiteSpace 6.1.R3, and the Bibliometric Online Analysis Platform to perform visualization and bibliometric analyses.

We included 424 studies in the analysis. Over the past two decades, research output grew steadily and reached its maximum in the last six years. China led in publication quantity, whereas Japan had the strongest influence in terms of scholarly impact. At the institutional level, Guangzhou Medical University contributed the most work, and the Journal of Asthma served as the primary publishing platform for studies on this topic. While Chest had the highest citation count. Akio Niimi and Irwin RS were the leading authors in terms of publication volume and citation impact, respectively. Frequently appearing keywords included "cough variant asthma", "diagnosis", "management", and "children". The Chest guideline emerged as a recent research frontier.

The field of CVA has developed into a significant research area, with high-impact authors, journals, and institutions contributing to the exploration of various key topics. Among these, the diagnosis of CVA, especially in children, remains an area with considerable potential for further development.