Global research hotspots and trends in the field of immunotherapy for liver cancer in 2011-2020 based on CiteSpace analysis / 临床肝胆病杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the research hotspots and trends in the field of immunotherapy for liver cancer in 2011-2020 based on bibliometric methods. Methods The Web of Science-SCI Expanded database was searched with the following search strategy #1 TS = (Liver Neoplasms OR Neoplasms, Hepatic OR Neoplasms, Liver OR Liver Neoplasm OR Neoplasm, Liver OR Hepatic Neoplasms OR Hepatic Neoplasm OR Neoplasm, Hepatic OR Cancer of Liver OR Hepatocellular Cancer OR Cancers, Hepatocellular OR Hepatocellular Cancers OR Hepatic Cancer OR Cancer, Hepatic OR Cancers, Hepatic OR Hepatic Cancers OR Liver Cancer OR Cancer, Liver OR Cancers, Liver OR Liver Cancers OR Cancer of the Liver OR Cancer, Hepatocellular) AND #2 TS = (Immunotherapy OR Immunotherapies OR Immunity therapy); time span 2011-2020; type of literature Article; language English. CiteSpace software was used to perform a visualized analysis of the articles in the field of immunotherapy for liver cancer published in 2011-2020 from the aspects of the distributions of year, country, institution, author, journal, and fund, times cited, and keywords, and the frequency, centrality, and clustering of keywords were discussed. Results A total of 1972 articles on immunotherapy for liver cancer were included, and the analysis showed that China was the country with the largest number of articles, Sun Yat-sen University was the institution with the largest number of articles, and Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer was the journal with the largest number of articles. The research hotspots in this field included tumor-associated macrophages, oncolytic virus (such as adenovirus), tumor vaccine therapy, adoptive cellular immunotherapy, immune checkpoint inhibitors, and combined immunotherapy. The trend of this field was tumor vaccine therapy → immunotherapy for oncolytic virus → adoptive cellular immunotherapy → immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy. Conclusion Immunotherapy for liver cancer has undergone continuous development in the recent ten years, and with the research and development of tumor vaccine therapy, oncolytic virus, and immune checkpoint inhibitors and the improvement of immune checkpoint inhibitors, combined treatment based on immunotherapy is expected to further improve the clinical outcome of liver cancer.