Global research trends of the application of artificial intelligence in bladder cancer since the 21st century: a bibliometric analysis

Yingjian Zhou; Wenchao Xu; Yan Zeng; Hao Li; Zhuo Liu; Tao Wang; Jihong Liu; Hongyang Jiang

doi:10.3389/fonc.2023.1227152

Global research trends of the application of artificial intelligence in bladder cancer since the 21st century: a bibliometric analysis

Front Oncol. 2023 Nov 29:13:1227152. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2023.1227152. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Yingjian Zhou^#^{1

2}, Wenchao Xu^#^{1

2}, Yan Zeng^#^{1

2}, Hao Li^{1

2}, Zhuo Liu^{1

2}, Tao Wang^{1

2}, Jihong Liu^{1

2}, Hongyang Jiang^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Urology, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.
² Institute of Urology, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Introduction: Since the significant breakthroughs in artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, the application of AI in bladder cancer has rapidly expanded. AI can be used in all aspects of the bladder cancer field, including diagnosis, treatment and prognosis prediction. Nowadays, these technologies have an excellent medical auxiliary effect and are in explosive development, which has aroused the intense interest of researchers. This study will provide an in-depth analysis using bibliometric analysis to explore the trends in this field.

Method: Documents regarding the application of AI in bladder cancer from 2000 to 2022 were searched and extracted from the Web of Science Core Collection. These publications were analyzed by bibliometric analysis software (CiteSpace, Vosviewer) to visualize the relationship between countries/regions, institutions, journals, authors, references, keywords.

Results: We analyzed a total of 2368 publications. Since 2016, the number of publications in the field of AI in bladder cancer has increased rapidly and reached a breathtaking annual growth rate of 43.98% in 2019. The U.S. has the largest research scale, the highest study level and the most significant financial support. The University of North Carolina is the institution with the highest level of research. EUROPEAN UROLOGY is the most influential journal with an impact factor of 24.267 and a total citation of 11,848. Wiklund P. has the highest number of publications, and Menon M. has the highest number of total citations. We also find hot research topics within the area through references and keywords analysis, which include two main parts: AI models for the diagnosis and prediction of bladder cancer and novel robotic-assisted surgery for bladder cancer radicalization and urinary diversion.

Conclusion: AI application in bladder cancer is widely studied worldwide and has shown an explosive growth trend since the 21st century. AI-based diagnostic and predictive models will be the next protagonists in this field. Meanwhile, the robot-assisted surgery is still a hot topic and it is worth exploring the application of AI in it. The advancement and application of algorithms will be a massive driving force in this field.

Keywords: CiteSpace; VOSviewer; artificial intelligence; bibliometric analysis; bladder cancer; robotic surgery.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This study was supported by the Foundation of Tongji Hospital (No. 2021A14), the Youth Project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 82001536) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (HUST: YCJJ202201021).