Scientometrics
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Transplant. Jun 18, 2025; 15(2): 99992
Published online Jun 18, 2025. doi: 10.5500/wjt.v15.i2.99992
COVID-19's impact on heart and lung transplantation: Citation-based analysis of research output
Nisreen Yaghmour, Dina Alramini, Mohammad Alsarayrah, Mohammad Abuassi, Awn Al-Rameni, Mohammad Aladaileh, Haneen Al-Abdallat, Badi Rawashdeh
Nisreen Yaghmour, Department of Cardiology, MercyOne Iowa Heart Center, Des Moines, IO 52302, United States
Dina Alramini, Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85702, United States
Mohammad Alsarayrah, Department of Vascular Surgery, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, United States
Mohammad Abuassi, Department of Internal Medicine, Jordan Hospital, Amman 00962, Al jamaimah, Jordan
Awn Al-Rameni, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Jordan, Amman 11698, Al jamaimah, Jordan
Mohammad Aladaileh, Department of Thoracic Surgery, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32605, United States
Haneen Al-Abdallat, Department of Medicine, Jordan University Hospital, Amman 11263, Al jamaimah, Jordan
Badi Rawashdeh, Department of Transplant Surgery, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI 53202, United States
Author contributions: Yaghmour N contributed to the data collection and initial analysis; Alramini D assisted in data interpretation and manuscript editing; Alsarayrah M, Al-Rameni A and Aladaileh M contributed to literature review; Abuassi M led the methodological design and data analysis; Al-abdallat H assisted in the visualization of data and contributed to manuscript preparation; Rawashdeh B Oversaw the entire project, from conception to execution, and was involved in manuscript writing; all of the authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript to be published.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors declare no conflict of interest in publishing the manuscript.
PRISMA 2009 Checklist statement: The authors have read the PRISMA 2009 Checklist, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the PRISMA 2009 Checklist.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (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: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Badi Rawashdeh, Doctor, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Transplant Surgery, Medical College of Wisconsin, No. 9200 W Wisconsin Ave Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI 53202, United States. brawashdeh@mcw.edu
Received: August 4, 2024
Revised: December 26, 2024
Accepted: January 11, 2025
Published online: June 18, 2025
Processing time: 200 Days and 15 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND

Since being declared as a pandemic on March 11, 2020, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has profoundly influenced heart and lung transplant programs, impacting donor availability, patient management, and healthcare resources. This study offers a citation-based review of the research output on this subject, seeking to understand how the transplant community has responded to these challenges. Through a review of literature from the beginning of the pandemic to early 2023, we evaluate the shifts in academic emphasis and the emerging trends in heart and lung transplantation during the COVID-19 period.

AIM

To assess the impact of COVID-19 on heart and lung transplantation research, highlighting key themes, contributions, and trends in the literature during the pandemic.

METHODS

We conducted an extensive search of the Web of Science database on February 9, 2023. We employed the terms "transplant" and "transplantation", as well as organ-specific terms like "heart", "cardiac", and "lung", combined with COVID-19-related terms such as "COVID-19", "coronavirus", and "SARS-CoV-2". The search encompassed publications from March 11, 2020 to February 9, 2023. Data on authors, journals, countries, institutions, and publication types (articles, reviews, conference papers, letters, notes, editorials, brief surveys, book chapters, and errata) were analyzed. The data was visualized and processed with VOSviewer 1.6.18 and Excel.

RESULTS

We included 847 research items. There were 392 articles (46.3%) and 88 reviews (10.3%). The studies included were referenced 7757 times, with an average of 9.17 citations per article. The majority of the publications (n = 317) were conducted by institutes from the United States with highest citations (n = 4948) on this subject, followed by Germany, Italy, and France. The majority of papers (n = 101) were published in the Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation.

CONCLUSION

To the fullest extent of our knowledge, this is the first bibliometric study of COVID-19's impact on heart and lung transplantation to offer a visual analysis of the literature in order to predict future frontiers and provide an overview of current research hotspots.

Keywords: COVID-19; Pandemic; Heart transplant; Lung transplant; Bibliometric analysis

Core Tip: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, which started on March 11, 2020, has had a huge impact on heart and lung transplant programs. We performed an extensive search in the Web of Science database, utilizing keywords associated with transplantation and COVID-19, encompassing publications from March 11, 2020, to February 9, 2023. We analyzed data on authors, journals, countries, institutions, and different types of publications using VOSviewer 1.6.18 and Excel for visualization and data manipulation. The study encompassed a total of 847 research items, consisting of a substantial number of articles and reviews. The average citation rate per article was 9.17. The majority of publications were from United States institutions, which also had the highest citation count, followed by Germany, Italy, and France. This bibliometric study is the first to give a full picture of how COVID-19 has affected heart and lung transplants, showing where more research is needed and where it should go in the future.