Research Trends in Physical Activity and Breast Cancer: A 25-Year Bibliometric Analysis (2000-2025)

Research on physical activity and breast cancer has grown steadily over the past 25 years, with a progressive shift from physiological and safety-related questions towards clinical, psychosocial and implementation domains.

To describe research trends, key actors and thematic foci in the scientific literature on physical activity and breast cancer between 2000 and 2025.

We included articles and reviews without language restrictions, published between 2000 and 2025 and indexed in Scopus, PubMed and Web of Science. Records were exported in CSV format and analysed using the Bibliometrix package in R. We described publication and citation volume, collaboration patterns (countries, institutions and authors), core journals according to Bradford's law, and the semantic evolution of the field based on keyword co-occurrence and trend topics.

We identified 13,329 documents on physical activity and breast cancer, with a sustained increase in both publications and citations over the study period. A marked geographical concentration was observed, with leadership by high-income, mainly Anglophone countries and a limited number of specialised editorial cores, as well as a small group of highly influential authors. The thematic analysis showed a shift from studies focused on functional capacity and safety towards clinical practice guidelines, survivorship and quality of life, alongside emerging lines such as prehabilitation, remote interventions and tele-exercise.

The field of physical activity and breast cancer shows a high and growing scientific output with a clear clinical orientation. Integrating exercise prescription into oncological care pathways, defining and standardising dose-response schemes according to tumour phenotype and clinical context, and expanding multicentre studies that include under-represented regions and populations-particularly in low- and middle-income countries-are recommended priorities for future research and practice.