Scientometrics
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2020. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Jul 26, 2020; 8(14): 3021-3030
Published online Jul 26, 2020. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v8.i14.3021
Bibliometric analysis of randomized controlled trials of colorectal cancer over the last decade
Chen-Yu Wang, Shi-Can Zhou, Xing-Wang Li, Bing-Hui Li, Jun-Jie Zhang, Zheng Ge, Quan Zhang, Jun-Hong Hu
Chen-Yu Wang, Shi-Can Zhou, Xing-Wang Li, Bing-Hui Li, Jun-Jie Zhang, Zheng Ge, Quan Zhang, Jun-Hong Hu, Department of Anorectal Surgery, Huaihe Hospital, Henan University, Kaifeng 47500, Henan Province, China
Author contributions: Wang CY and Zhou SC contributed equally to this article; Wang CY designed the research, performed the databases search, and drafted the article; Zhou SC designed the research, repeated the databases search, and made critical revisions to the manuscript; Li XW, Li BH, Zhang JJ and Ge Z performed literature review, recorded and checked relevant information, and did statistical analyses; Zhang Q and Hu JH supervised the study and edited the manuscript; All of the authors approved the version of the article to be published.
Supported by Key Research and Promotion Projects of Henan Province, No. 202102310094; Wu Jieping Medical Foundation of Clinical Research Special Fund, No. 320.2710.1836; Henan University Graduate“Excellence Program”, No. SYL18060141; Henan Province Medical Science and Technology Project Joint Development Project, No. 2018020331.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
PRISMA 2009 Checklist statement: The authors have read the PRISMA 2009 Checklist, and the manuscript was prepared and revised in accordance with this checklist.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
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: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Jun-Hong Hu, MD, Chief Doctor, Department of Anorectal Surgery, Huaihe Hospital, Henan University, No. 8, Baobei Road, Gulou District, Kaifeng 47500, Henan Province, China. hjh-8282@163.com
Received: March 26, 2020
Peer-review started: March 28, 2020
First decision: April 24, 2020
Revised: May 30, 2020
Accepted: July 4, 2020
Article in press: July 4, 2020
Published online: July 26, 2020
Processing time: 119 Days and 23.1 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND

Colorectal cancer is one of the most common cancers globally. In China, its prevalence ranks fourth and fifth among females and males, respectively. Presently, treatment of rectal cancer follows a multidisciplinary comprehensive treatment approach involving surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and targeted therapy. With deepening theoretical and molecular research on colorectal cancer, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on colorectal cancer have made significant progress. However, many RCTs have shortfalls.

AIM

To investigate the RCTs of global colorectal cancer spanning from 2008 to 2018. To provide suggestions for conducting Chinese RCTs of colorectal cancer.

METHODS

PubMed and Web of Science databases were searched to obtain RCTs of colorectal cancer carried out between January 1, 2008, and January 1, 2018. The bibliometric method was used for statistical analysis of the publication years, countries/regions, authors, institutions, source journals, quoted times, key words, and authors.

RESULTS

Colorectal cancer RCTs showed an upward trend between 2008 to 2018; the top 10 research institutions in the included literature were from the United States, the United Kingdom, and other countries with a high incidence of colorectal cancer. Most of the related research journals are sponsored by European and American countries. The 15 most cited studies involved international multicenter clinical research, having few participants from Chinese research institutions. Network visualization using key words showed that RCTs on colorectal cancer focus on screening, disease-free survival, drug treatment, surgical methods, clinical trials, quality of life, and prognosis. The result of the coauthorship network analysis showed that Chinese researchers are less involved in international exchanges compared to those from leading publication countries.

CONCLUSION

High-quality RCTs are increasingly favored by leading international journals. However, there is still a large gap in clinical research between China and leading countries. Researchers should implement standardized and accurate clinical trials, strengthen international multicenter cooperation, and emphasize quality control.

Keywords: Colorectal cancer; Randomized controlled trial; Bibliometrics; China

Core tip: Bibliometrics was used to quantitatively analyze 1555 articles from PubMed and Web of Science databases. We compared randomized controlled trials of colorectal cancer from China with those published in other countries. This is the first global analysis of this topic in which we analyzed the year of publication, countries/regions, institutions, journals, citations, key words, and authors. Suggestions on how to conduct clinical research were also given.