Research on liquid biopsy for cancer: A bibliometric analysis

Background: In recent years, liquid biopsy has shown great potential for improving cancer diagnosis and treatment. This study aimed to explore the trends and prospects in liquid biopsy for cancer from a bibliometric perspective. Methods: Reviews and articles on liquid biopsy and cancer were collected from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC). Key bibliometric characteristics were analyzed using CiteSpace. Co-occurrence analysis of keywords and co-citation analysis of references was performed. Results: A total of 6331 publications from 11 years of scientific research were retrieved. Ninety-five countries and 7004 institutions in liquid biopsy and cancer contributed. The United States (US) and China published the most articles. The institution with the most published articles was the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. The most published journals were Cancer and Frontiers in Oncology. “Bettegowda (2014)" was the most cited reference with the highest burst strength in the last decade. Cluster analysis revealed that the recent hot topics were “circulating tumor cells,” “cancer,” and “exosomes." Conclusions: This bibliometric analysis maps the basic knowledge structure of the field of liquid biopsy for cancer. The field is entering a phase of rapid development. The hot spots identified in this study deserve further investigation.