The following is a summary of “Future landscape of immunology in COPD: A bibliometric analysis,” published in the DECEMBER 2023 issue of Pulmonology by Sun, et al.

For a study, researchers sought to conduct a comprehensive and comparative analysis of the last 50 years of research in the immunology of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and to identify future research priorities and directions.

Publication information was obtained from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) database. Bibliometric analysis was conducted using Scimago Graphica, CiteSpace, VOSviewer, GraphPad Prism, Microsoft Excel 365, and the R package “bibliometrix.” The analysis included burst citation, clustering and co-citation, keyword co-occurrence, and cooperative network graph clustering algorithms.

A total of 2,239 articles and reviews were included in the analysis, revealing an upward trend in the number of annual publications with fluctuations. The USA, Imperial College London (ICL), Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, and Murphy TF were identified as the countries, institutions, journals, and authors with the highest number of publications, respectively. Additionally, 58 references and 13 keywords exhibited a burst citation nature in the last 3 years, mainly related to the study of inflammatory mechanisms.

Bibliometric analysis was employed to comprehend the research progress in understanding immune function in COPD. The findings highlighted hotspots in COPD immunology research, with primary research focusing on etiology, risk factors, and exploration of the immune system. In contrast, clinical research hotspots concentrated on epidemiology, prevention, and management of different COPD subtypes. The analysis provided insights into the current state of COPD immunology research and identified areas for future exploration and emphasis.

Source: resmedjournal.com/article/S0954-6111(23)00350-5/fulltext