Research hotspots and trends of artificial intelligence ethics in medicine: A bibliometric analysis from 1999 to 2025

The exponential growth of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare has raised critical ethical concerns.

To systematically identify research hotspots and trends of AI ethics in the medical field and provide evidence-based insights for future research.

A bibliometric analysis was conducted on publications from the Web of Science Core Collection (WOSCC) and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) up to August 24, 2025. Visualisation tools were used to map the publication trend, as well as author, country, institution, journal, and keyword distributions. Keyword co-occurrence networks, clustering and burst analysis were employed to identify research hotspots and evolving trends. The results are reported following the BIBLIO checklist.

A total of 1034 publications (291 from CNKI, 743 from WOSCC) were included. Key journals were Chinese Medical Ethics (CNKI) and Journal of Medical Ethics (WOSCC). China (n = 291) and the USA (n = 174) were the top publishing countries in CNKI and WOSCC, respectively. Leading institutional output came from developed countries (e.g., Harvard University, University of London, University of Toronto). Four research hotspots were identified: 1) ethical issues in different application scenarios of AI techniques in clinical practice, 2) AI ethical concerns and considerations in medical academia, 3) ethical challenges in AI-driven medical education, and 4) ethical governance, supervision, and review in healthcare. Keyword burst analysis indicated an increasing attention on balancing AI development with ethical governance, promoting research on complex intelligent tools embedded with ethical principles.

Attention to this topic has grown steadily over the past eight years. Research trends reflect a shift from fragmentation to the integration of technology and ethics in medicine. Future research should further refine the operational definitions of ethical principles across diverse application scenarios to guide stakeholders in effectively integrating technology and ethics.