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Global Scientific Research Progress in Thyroid Cancer: A Bibliometric Analysis

Hassan H. Musa1,2, Idriss H. Musa1,3, Mansour El-Sharief2, Taha H. Musa1,3,4*

1 Biomedical Research Institute, Darfur College, Nyala, Sudan;
2 Faculty of Medical Laboratory Sciences, University of Khartoum, Khartoum, Sudan;
3 School of Medicine, Darfur College, Nyala, Sudan;
4 Organization of African Academic Doctor (OAAD), Off Kamiti Road, P.O Box 25305000100, Nairobi, Kenya.

Conflict-of-interest statement: The author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest regarding the publication of this paper.

Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http: //creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

Correspondence to: Taha H. Musa, Biomedical Research Institute, Darfur College, Nyala, Sudan.
Email: taha.hm99@yahoo.com

Received: April 23, 2021
Revised: May 20, 2021
Accepted: May 25, 2021
Published online: May 31, 2021

ABSTRACT

The incidence of thyroid cancer (TC) has rapidly increased in the world. The study aims to provide a detailed evaluation of thyroid cancer research output. Data were retrieved from the Web of Science (WOS) Core Collection and Scopus databases for bibliometric analysis. A total of 10689 and 9063 documents of TC were retrieved from Scopus and WOS, respectively. Dramatic growth in the global TC research was observed from 1991-2020. USA, China, Italy, Korea, Japan and Germany were the leading countries; the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and the University of Pisa were the leading institutes in thyroid cancer research at the global level. A scientist from the division of medicine, biochemistry, genetics and molecular biology were contributed more than 85% of the publications. USA agencies supported 25.68% of TC research. Journal of thyroid and journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism are the most productive journals. Wang Y and Tuttle RM were the top productive, authors. Revised American thyroid association management guidelines for patients with thyroid nodules and differentiated thyroid cancer authored by Cooper DS et al., published in 2009, was the most cited article. The most retrieved keywords were thyroid cancer, papillary thyroid cancer, and differentiated thyroid cancer. The study concludes that USA institutes and funding agencies contribute to thyroid cancer research at a global level. Papillary thyroid cancer is a hot topic for research.

Key words: Thyroid cancer; Bibliometrics; Scopus; Web of Science

© 2021 The Author(s). Published by ACT Publishing Group Ltd. All rights reserved.

Musa HH, Musa IH, El-Sharief M, Musa TH. Global Scientific Research Progress in Thyroid Cancer: A Bibliometric Analysis. Journal of Tumor 2021; 9(1): 579-586 Available from: URL: http://www.ghrnet.org/index.php/jt/article/view/3154

INTROUDUCTION

The thyroid is important endocrine gland composed histologically two main parenchymal cell types. Follicular cells, concentrate iodine, and produce thyroid hormones. These cells rise to well-differentiated cancers (i.e., papillary and follicular) and anaplastic thyroid cancer. The para-follicular cell, produces the hormone calcitonin and is the cell for medullary thyroid carcinoma[1-5]. The incidence of thyroid cancer has increased greatly worldwide in the past few decades, about two-fold accounting for 2% of all cancers[6-10]. In the United States, thyroid cancer incidence rates have increased by 211% between 1975 and 2013[11]. This increase was attributed mainly to papillary thyroid cancer, the most common histologic subtype of thyroid cancer, accounts for 88% of all thyroid malignancies[10,12]. While the increase for follicular or medullary subtypes were to a much lesser extent [13].

Several environnemental and genetic factors are contributed in the incidence of thyroid cancer such as radiation, iodine intake, age, female sex, and family history[9,14,15]. Conventional therapeutics for thyroid cancer include surgery, chemo-therapy, radioactive iodine treatment, and external beam radiotherapy[16,17], systemic therapy may also be offered[18].

Bibliometrics is a useful method to evaluate the trends of research activity over time and to inform future policy[19].The role of research in addressing the burden of disease, improved health and healthcare delivery and develop evidence-based policy[20,21]. Only one study was conducted on thyroid research and practice, but not on thyroid cancer [22]. Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine the research activity related to thyroid cancer in the world through the quantification of the published articles. Further to gives better understand of research progress and development trends over the time and provide information for funding agencies to establish related guidelines on thyroid cancer research.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Data source

The data was collected from both Web of Science (WOS) Core Collection database maintained by Clarivate Analytics, including Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED) and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), and the Scopus databases Access date: 15 June 2020), the extracted data were analyzed using bibliometric methods.

The literature search

The literature review was conducted using the keyword “Thyroid cancer” OR “Papillary thyroid cancer” OR “Follicular thyroid cancer” OR “Medullary thyroid cancer” OR “Anaplastic thyroid cancer” in the ‘‘Research Area’’ category using the advanced search option available in WOS and Scopus data bases. The search was refined by: Searched document types “ARTICLE OR REVIEW” were included in the Indexes=SCI-EXPANDED, SSCI for WOS database. Timespan starts from 1991-2020, Language=English for overall selected databases. Final cross-examination of the selected database was performed independently by (THM and HHM) in one a single day on June 15, 2020 to avoid the update of the citations. Ethical approval for the study was not necessary since we were downloaded the data of thyroid cancer from the public databases (WOS and Scopus) and did not involve any interactions with human or animal subjects.

Data analysis and visualization

Bibliometric analyses were performed using Bibliometrix an R Package to assess the growth trend, countries, initiations, authorship, journal, high cited articles, funding agency and research categories. VOSviewer 1.6.10 program produced by (Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands)[23] was used for constructing and visualizing bibliometric networks for countries/territories collaborations, insinuate collaborations, citations and co-occurrence keywords. Further Statistical analysis was conducted using SPSS (Version 22.0, SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA, License). The relation between the number of publications of the countries and the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), was analyzed using the Spearman’s correlation coefficient. A correlation coefficient of 0.90 to1.00 was considered very high, 0.70 to 0.89 was considered high, 0.50 to 0.69 was considerate moderate, and 0.26 to 0.49 was low.

RESULTS

Global trend in thyroid cancer research

The characteristics of thyroid cancer extracted data were studied for both WOS and Scopus metadata. In Scopus, the 10689 documents received 8.49 average years from publication, 25.96 average citations per documents, and 2.629 scores of average citations per year per documents. Whereas, in WOS the 9063 documents received average years from publication 8.19 score, average citations per documents 26.19 score, and average citations per year per documents 2.78 scores (Table 1). The global trend of publications on thyroid cancer research was annually increased; the number of publication indexed in Scopus database was higher compared with WOS (Figure 1).

Figure 1 The number of annual publications on TC research indexed in WOS and Scopus databases (1991-2020).

Table 1 Thyroid cancer information indexced in WOS and Scopus database (1991- 2020).
DescriptionWOS meta dataScopus meta data
Timespan1991:20201991:2020
Documents906310689
Average years from publication8.198.49
Average citations per documents26.4925.96
Average citations per year per doc2.7832.629
References126188270411
Document types
Article80259095
Review10381594
Document contents
Keywords Plus985021832
Author's Keywords954010128
Authors2811731128
Author appearances5798569797
Authors of single-authored documents206358
Authors of multi-authored documents2791130770
Authors2811731128
Authors collaboration
Single-authored documents275538
Documents per Author0.3220.343
Authors per Document3.12.91
Co-Authors per Documents6.46.53
Collaboration Index3.183.03

Annual citations of thyroid cancer

The citation rate of the thyroid cancer research during the study period per total cited article and total cited documents per years for WOS, and Scopus metadata are demonstrated n Figure 2. The mean total cited article was sharply decreased after 2010. While the total cited documents per year was annually increasing.

Figure 2 The number of the annual trend of average cited documents per article and years in TC research indexed in WOS and Scopus databases (1991-2020).

Top productive countries in thyroid cancer research

A 58.89% of the total publications of TC were published in Scopus databases, and 78.92 % were published in WOS database. The most top 7 countries are presented with the same ranking in two databases. The USA was the highest production, followed by China, Italy, Korea, Japan and Germany, as shown in WOS databases and Scopus databases (Table 2). A correlation coefficient between the reported variables was 0.843 which shows a very high association between the thyroid cancer research in the top 10 produced countries and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the year 2019 (Figure 3).

Table 2 Top 10 most crosponding authros countries with more publications on thyroid cancer
CountryArticles% of articleNo. of articles per millionSCPMCPMCP_Ratio
Scopus data base
USA229721.496.9419043930.17
China8968.3826.22849470.05
Italy7737.2321.286341390.18
Korea7006.5492.71647530.07
Japan4374.0883.45394430.09
Germany3733.494.482541190.32
France2402.2453.68183570.24
United kingdom2222.0773.27178440.19
Canada2152.0115.69172430.2
Poland1421.3283.7128140.09
Total629558.8941.4253439521.6
Web of Sciences (WOS)
USA243026.8127.3419734570.18
China145816.0871.0113451130.07
Italy8809.711.467061740.19
Korea6377.0292.47589480.07
Japan4234.6673.34372510.12
Germany4014.4254.822821190.29
France2753.0344.21196790.29
Canada2402.6486.35187530.22
United kingdom2182.4053.21172460.21
Turkey1912.1072.26181100.05
Total715378.922.26181100.05

Figure 3 Association between the numbers of publication in top 10 countries produced article in thyroid cancer and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the year 2019.

Top 10 cited articles in thyroid cancer

The results of the top 10 listed documents in thyroid cancer indexed in WOS and Scopus metadata with total citation score are shown in Table 3. The results showed that the average total citations score among the top 10 Scopus documents was 2507.60±129.64, range 4718 to 1013, compared with the average of total citation score indexed in WOS 1663.90 ± 810.51 and range 4,331 to 894. There is no significant difference between the total citations sore in Scopus and WOS among the top 10 productive documents (p = 0.097).

Table 3 Top 10 cited papers in thyroid cancer indexed in Scopus data bases.
RManuscript (first author, title, journal and year) indexed in ScopusTC
1st Cooper, D.S., et al. Revised American thyroid association management guidelines for patients with thyroid nodules and differentiated thyroid cancer, 2009. Thyroid .19(11), pp. 1167-12144718
2nd Haugen, B.R. et al. 2015 American Thyroid Association Management Guidelines for Adult Patients with Thyroid Nodules and Differentiated Thyroid Cancer: The American Thyroid Association Guidelines Task Force on Thyroid Nodules and Differentiated Thyroid Cancer, 2016. Thyroid 26(1), pp. 1-1333793
3rdDavies, L., Welch, H.G.Increasing incidence of thyroid cancer in the United States,2006 1973-20022299
4th Rahib, L., et al. Projecting cancer incidence and deaths to 2030: The unexpected burden of thyroid, liver, and pancreas cancers in the united states,2014. Cancer Research 74(11), pp. 2913-29212242
5thMazzaferri, E.L., Jhiang, S.M.Long-term impact of initial surgical and medical therapy on papillary and follicular thyroid cancer, 1994. The American Journal of Medicine 97(5), pp. 418-4281974
6thCooper, D.S. et al .Management guidelines for patients with thyroid nodules and differentiated thyroid cancer, 2006. Thyroid 16(2), pp. 109-1411602
7th Liaw, D., et al. Germline mutations of the PTEN gene in Cowden disease, an inherited breast and thyroid cancer syndrome,1997. Nature Genetics 16(1), pp. 64-671562
8th Hundahl, S.A. et al. A National Cancer Data Base report on 53,856 cases of thyroid carcinoma treated in the U.S., 1985-1995,1998. Cancer 83(12), pp. 2638-26481358
9th Kimura, E.T., et al. High prevalence of BRAF mutations in thyroid cancer: Genetic evidence for constitutive activation of the RET/PTC-RAS-BRAF signaling pathway in papillary thyroid carcinoma,2003. Cancer Research 63(7), pp. 1454-14571197
10th Ron E, et al. Thyroid cancer after exposure to external radiation: A pooled analysis of seven studies,1995. RADIATION RESEARCH Volume: 141 Issue: 3 Pages: 259-277 Published: MAR 19951013
 Manuscript (first author, title, journal and year) indexed in WOS 
1st Cooper, D.S., et al. Revised American thyroid association management guidelines for patients with thyroid nodules and differentiated thyroid cancer, 2009. Thyroid .19(11), pp. 1167-12144331
2nd Haugen, B.R. et al. 2015 American Thyroid Association Management Guidelines for Adult Patients with Thyroid Nodules and Differentiated Thyroid Cancer: The American Thyroid Association Guidelines Task Force on Thyroid Nodules and Differentiated Thyroid Cancer, 2016. Thyroid 26(1), pp. 1-1333573
3rdRahib, L., et al. Projecting cancer incidence and deaths to 2030: The unexpected burden of thyroid, liver, and pancreas cancers in the united states,2014. Cancer Research 74(11), pp. 2913-29212162
4th Davies, L., Welch, H.G.Increasing incidence of thyroid cancer in the United States,2006 1973-20022140
5thMazzaferri, E.L., Jhiang, S.M.Long-term impact of initial surgical and medical therapy on papillary and follicular thyroid cancer, 1994. The American Journal of Medicine 97(5), pp. 418-4281752
 Liaw, D., et al. Germline mutations of the PTEN gene in Cowden disease, an inherited breast and thyroid cancer syndrome,1997. Nature Genetics 16(1), pp. 64-671457
7th Cooper, D.S. et al .Management guidelines for patients with thyroid nodules and differentiated thyroid cancer, 2006. Thyroid 16(2), pp. 109-1411441
8th Hundahl, S.A. et al. A National Cancer Data Base report on 53,856 cases of thyroid carcinoma treated in the U.S., 1985-1995,1998. Cancer 83(12), pp. 2638-26481216
9th Kimura, E.T., et al. High prevalence of BRAF mutations in thyroid cancer: Genetic evidence for constitutive activation of the RET/PTC-RAS-BRAF signaling pathway in papillary thyroid carcinoma,2003. Cancer Research 63(7), pp. 1454-14571110
10th Ron E, et al. Thyroid cancer after exposure to external radiation: A pooled analysis of seven studies,1995. RADIATION RESEARCH Volume: 141 Issue: 3 Pages: 259-277 Published: MAR 1995894

Top 10 Institutes focusing on thyroid cancer research

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, United States, had the greatest number of publications on thyroid cancer 716 papers, accounting for 7.90% of the total published literature in WOS, followed by the University of Pisa, Italy 582 publications, accounting for 6.42 published documents, and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Texas, United States of America 419 publications, accounting for 4.62% of total published literature in WOS compared with Scopus databases as shown in Table 4. Among the top 10 productive institutions in thyroid cancer, only one Chinese institute and two Korean Institute were included in Asia.

Table 4 Ranking of institutions that published articles on the thyroid cancer research.
RWeb of Science metadataScopus meta database
  AffiliationsNP (%) AffiliationsNP (%)
1stMemorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center716 (7.90)University of Pisa407 (3.89)
2ndThe University of Pisa582 (6.42)National Cancer Institute374 (3.58)
3rdThe University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center419 (4.62)Memorial Sloan-kettering Cancer Center294 (2.81)
4thSeoul National University407 (4.49)University of California245 (2.34)
5thJohns Hopkins University380 (4.19)Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center205 (1.96)
6thOhio state University378 (4.17)Harvard Medical School189 (1.81)
7thYonsei University357 (3.94)University of Toronto186 (1.78)
8thUniversity Calif San Francisco328 (3.62)Yonsei University College of Medicine169 (1.61)
9thUniversity Ulsan318 (3.51)Mayo Clinic168 (1.61)
10thFudan University294 (3.24)Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine158 (1.51)
Note: R: rank, NB: Number of publications

Top 10 research categories

The top 10 research field categories on thyroid cancer, noted that in Scopus 9016 documents were published in medicine, accounting 55.90%, followed by 5270 documents published in biochemistry, genetics and molecular biology, accounting 32.68%. Whereas, in WOS 2692 documents were published in oncology accounting 29.69%, followed by 2604 documents published in endocrinology and metabolism accounting 28.72% (Table 5).

Table 5 Top 10 research field categories on thyroid cancer.
RWeb of Science categoriesNP (%)Scopus categoriesNP (%)
1stOncology2,692 (29.69)Medicine 9016(55.90)
2ndEndocrinology Metabolism2,604 (28.72)Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 5270(32.68)
3rdSurgery1,222 (13.48)Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics 304(1.88)
4thRadiology Nuclear Medicine Medical Imaging864 (9.53)Multidisciplinary 191(1.18)
5thOtorhinolaryngology433 (4.77)Agriculture and Biological Sciences 158(0.98)
6thMedicine Research Experimental430 (4.74)Neurosciences 148(0.92)
7thCell Biology396 (4.37)Environmental sciences 141(0.87)
8thMedicine General internal358 (3.95)Physics and Astronomy 130(0.81)
9thBiochemistry Molecular Biology325 (3.58)Immunology and Microbiology 122(0.76)
10thPublic Environmental Occupational Health260 (2.87)Chemistry 120(0.74)
Note: R: rank, NB: Number of publications

Top 10 funding agencies

The top 10 funding agencies in WOS and Scopus Metadata are shown in Table 6. A total of 912 studies accounting 10.06% were supported by the United States Department of Health Human Services, followed by National Institutes of Health NIH, USA 904 documents accounting 9.97%, and NIH National Cancer Institute NCI 512 documents accounting 5.65% of overall articles indexed in WOS.

Table 6 Top 10 related funding agencies contributed in published doucments related to thyroid cancer.
RWeb of Science CategoriesNP (%)Scopus databaseNP (%)
1stUnited States Department of Health Human Services912 (10.06)National Institutes of Health 367(3.51)
2ndNational Institutes of Health NIH USA904 (9.97)National Natural Science Foundation of China 330(3.16)
3rdNIH National Cancer Institute NCI512 (5.65)National Cancer Institute 195(1.87)
4thNational Natural Science Foundation of China444 (4.89)National Research Foundation of Korea 95(0.91)
5thAssociazione Italian Per la ricerca Sul cancro airc156 (1.72)Association Italian per la Ricerca sul Cancro 66(0.63)
6thMinistry of education universities and Research Miur99 (1.09)American Cancer Society 53(0.51)
7thAmerican cancer society65 (0.72)Eisai Inc. 40(0.38)
8thGenzyme corporation63 (0.69)Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning 32(0.31)
9thMinistry of Education Culture Sports Science and Technology Japan Mext58 (0.64)Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan 28(0.27)
10thEisai inc52 (0.57)European Commission 26(0.25)
Note: R: rank, NP: Number of publications.

Top 10 productive authors

Wang Y and Tuttle RM were the top productive authors published articles of thyroid cancer research in both WOS and Scopus databases. Pacini F has published 71 documents with high total citation reached to 13565 and h-index 35 scores in WOS. In addition, Pacini F was also published 86 documents with total citations 15902 scores, and h-index 39 scores in the Scopus database (Table 7).

Table 7 Top 10 author impact in the thyroid cancer research
RAuthorh_indexTCNPPY_start
Web of Sciences data
1stWang Y2117751142007
2ndTuttle RM43109791141998
3rdZhang Y181647902007
4thSchlumberger M399742871991
5thClark OH393699831991
6thElisei R375901821991
7thLi X17839742007
8thChen H262075751996
9thZhang L211565742005
10thPacini F3513565711991
Scopus data bases
1stTuttle RM46170411331998
2ndWang Y2318631202007
3rdSchlumberger M50187911231991
4thClark OH4653911071991
5thElisei R4075971011991
6thZhang Y221897942007
7thKebebew E373903882000
8thPacini F3915902861991
9thChen H292964831996
10thSosa JA286743822006
Note: NP: Number of publications, TC:Total citations, PY-star : Publications year starting

Top 10 productive journals and their impact factor

The top productive journal published thyroid cancer articles include 1,114 journals in WOS databases and 1,653 Journal in Scopus databases. Among WOS databases, only 2175 documents have been reported published in top 10 journal compare with 2157 documents published in Scopus databases. Both the top productive journal indexed in WOS, and Scopus databases were published more than 100 papers. The greatest number of thyroid cancer documents published in Thyroid Journal (Impact factors 5.309, 2019), (n = 661) in WOS, and (n = 635) documents in Scopus, followed closely by the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (Impact factor 5.399, 2019) (n = 435) in WOS, and (n = 443) in Scopus database. The results show that the top 10 journals published documents in thyroid cancer research have impact factors more than 2 (Table 8).

Table 8 The top 10 Journals published article related to thyroid cancer research.
RWeb of Sciences dataScopus meta data
1stSources of Journal, n (1114)NP(%) IF (2019)Journal, n (1653)NP(%)IF (2019)
2ndThyroid6617.295.309 (Q1)Thyroid6356.155.309 (Q1)
3rdJournal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism4354.85.399 (Q1)Journal of clinical endocrinology and Metabolism4434.295.399 (Q1)
4thSurgery1882.073.356 (Q1)Endocrine-related Cancer1731.684.8 (Q1)
5thEndocrine-related Cancer1751.934.8 (Q1)Clinical Nuclear Medicine1631.586.622 (Q1)
6thClinical Endocrinology1341.483.38 (Q2)Clinical Endocrinology1371.333.38 (Q2)
7thEndocrine1261.393.235 (Q3)Endocrine1291.253.235 (Q3)
8thPLOS ONE1171.292.74 (Q2)Journal of Endocrinological Investigation1261.223.397 (Q2)
9thJournal of Endocrinological Investigation1151.273.397 (Q2)Oncotarget1201.165.168 (Q1)
10thWorld Journal of Surgery1151.272.234 (Q2)PLOS ONE1191.152.74 (Q2)
Note: R: Rank, NP: Number of publications, IF: Impact factor, Q: Quartile range

Co-authorship networks visualization

The visualizations of co-authorship networks for publication indexed in Scopus metadata shows 281 items which presented in 15 clusters with 2890 links, and total link strength 10404 scores. Among the presented authors are Elisei R. published 95 documents with 6636 citations score and total link strength 413, followed by Tuttle RM published 128 documents with 16136 citation score and total length strength 314 (Figure 4A). Overall author’s networks in WOS metadata were presented in 13 clusters with 548 link score and total link strength 3216 score. The high authors outcome based on the total link strength were Tuttle RM published 96 documents, with 12197 citations score, and total length strength 209, followed by Antonelli Alessandro published 52 documents, with 1146 citations score and total length strength 117 (Figure 4B).

Figure 4A Scopus metadata. Co-authorship networks among authors by applying a threshold of 20. Of the 30363 authors, 283 authors meet the thresholds.

Figure 4A Web of Science metadata. Co-authorship networks among authors by applying a threshold of 20. Of the 34677 authors, 130 authors meet the thresholds.

Top 50 authors key words on thyroid cancer

The top 50 authors keywords on thyroid cancer were analyzed using the word cloud visualizations indexed in WOS and Scopus metadata. Among the 9582 Author’s Keywords, only the top 50 keywords indexed in WOS metadata are shown in the word cloud network. The analysis shows thyroid cancer were frequency presented more than 2221 time, followed by papillary thyroid cancer 527 time, differentiated thyroid cancer 521 times, and thyroid neoplasms 229 times, prognosis 210 times, thyroglobulin 208 times, thyroid carcinoma 183 times, papillary thyroid carcinoma 168 times, medullary thyroid cancer 161 times, and lymph node metastasis 53 times (Figure 5A). The same indexed author’s keyword was shown in Scopus word cloud visualization map (Figure 5B).

Figure 5A The analysis of the top 50 authors keywords indexed in WOS, and Scopus database

Figure 5B The analysis of the top 50 authors keywords on thyroid cancer using wordcloud visualizations indexed in Scopus.

DISCUSSION

The incidence rate of thyroid cancer has been rising rapidly worldwide in recent decades; however, its trend remains unclear[4]. Bibliometrics may quantitatively monitor research performance in science and present predictions[24]. In the present study, 10689 documents relating to TC were retrieved from Scopus, and 9063 documents from WOS, dramatic growth in the global publication number on TC research was observed from 1991-2020. This was consistent with the increase in the incidence of thyroid cancer worldwide. Environmental and lifestyle factors (e.g., radiation, iodine intake, and nitrates), and chronic lymphocytic thyroiditis were possible causes for thyroid cancer incidence[15]. The increase in the incidence may be attributable to the widespread use of imaging studies, such as ultrasounds, computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and positron emission tomography scans, that incidentally detect thyroid nodules[25].

In terms of country analysis, USA, China, Italy and South Korea were the leading countries in thyroid cancer publications in the world. It was highly associated with the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of these countries. The previous study showed that the number of new cases of thyroid cancer and thyroid cancer-related deaths was estimated to be 62,450 and 1950 in 2015, respectively, in the USA[26]. Therefore, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in the United States and the University of Pisa in Italy are the leading institute in TC research at the global level. Similarly, among the top funding agencies contributed in thyroid cancer research the first three rank agencies were from USA (United States Department of Health Human Services, National Institutes of Health NIH USA, and NIH national Cancer Institute NCI). Among all institute’s division of medicine, and Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology were contributed more than 85% of the publications.

In terms of journals, we observed that the Journal of Thyroid published far more TC research papers, followed by the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. The thyroid is a medical journal in the field of endocrinology, covering research on thyroid cancer and all thyroid-related diseases. It is the official journal of the American Thyroid Association and published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., with an impact factor of 7.78. The most active authors were Wang Y and Tuttle RM, some of their highly cited research focus are on thyroid carcinoma[27], controversial issues in thyroid cancer management[28], and risk stratification in differentiated thyroid cancer from detection to final follow up[29]. Analysis of top ten cited articles showed that Revised American Thyroid Association Management Guidelines for Patients with Thyroid Nodules and Differentiated Thyroid Cancer authored by Cooper DS et al., published in 2009 was the most cited article, which indicated that these guidelines might be classic and fundamental for further studies and should be read by any scientist in the field of thyroid cancer.

As shown in the bibliometric mapping of keywords, the most occurrence authors keywords retrieved were thyroid cancer, papillary thyroid cancer, and differentiated thyroid cancer. Differentiated thyroid cancer, which includes papillary and follicular histologies, is a common malignancy and is increasing in incidence. Previous studies indicated that the increase in thyroid cancer was attributed mainly to papillary thyroid cancer, which accounts for 88% of all thyroid malignancies[10,12]. It was proposed that the increased incidence of papillary thyroid cancer was attributed to the enhanced diagnostic detection in recent years[30]. Therefore, the governments in the developing world should pay more attention to thyroid cancer research and provide more manpower and supported materials. This study represents a useful tool for scientists and public health policy makers in planning and organizing scientific program for the treatment of thyroid cancer.

CONCLUSIONS

This study demonstrates that the literature on TC was continuously growing. USA and China made the largest contribution in TC research. Research direction in TC was papillary thyroid cancer and differentiated thyroid cancer. The efforts should be made by the developed countries to help developing countries with the highest prevalence of TC.

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