Research hot spots and trends in endocrine-related adverse events caused by immune checkpoint inhibitors: a bibliometric analysis and visualization research

Abstract

Background: In recent years, with the widespread use of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) in cancer treatment, the toxicity associated with immunotherapy of ICIs has attracted more attention from scholars. Endocrine toxicity is the most likely immune-related adverse events (irAEs) and is often irreversible, posing a significant clinical treatment challenge.

Methods: In this study, bibliometric methods were used to analyze relevant literature in screening endocrine-related adverse events caused by ICIs in the Web of Science core collection database (WoSCC) and to summarize the status, research hot spots, and future trends in this field.

Results: 321 countries, 297 institutions, 365 authors, and 305 journals had published 671 English documents on endocrine adverse reactions of ICIs as of 1 December, 2022. The United States, Japan, and China were the top three countries with the most publications. The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Harvard Medical School, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center were the top three research institutions in terms of publication output. F Stephen Hodi, from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in the United States, contributed the largest number of publications. Frontiers in Oncology, which was the most widely distributed publication in the field. The main keywords or clusters identified that current research hotspots include the management of endocrine-related adverse events, hypophysitis, thyroid dysfunction, type I diabetes mellitus, and the impact of endocrine adverse events on survival of patients in this field.

Conclusion: The basic knowledge structure of the field of endocrine-related adverse events of ICIs, including publication trends, authors, institutions, countries, keywords, journals and publications, and cited documents, was visually analyzed in this bibliometric analysis. The research results comprehensively demonstrated the hot spots and future trends in the research field, as well as its broad prospects, thus providing a reference for the researchers.

Keywords: adverse events; bibliometrics; endocrine; immune checkpoint inhibitor; toxicity; visual analysis.