Financial toxicity of breast cancer over the last 30 years: A bibliometrics study and visualization analysis via CiteSpace

This literature on financial toxicity (FT) of breast cancer aimed to identify the leading countries, institutions, key researchers, influential references, top journals, research hotspots, and frontiers in the field. Published articles on FT in breast cancer patients were systematically retrieved and screened from the Web of Science databases from inception to March 28, 2022. The CiteSpace software was used to generate knowledge maps to analyze bibliometric characteristics in FT research on breast cancer patients. A total of 615 publications were included, with a year-on-year increase in the number of publications. A total of 591 authors conducted research on the FT in breast cancer patients, with Yabroff KR being the most prolific author. The US was the absolute leader in this field, with almost all major research institutions and authors located in the US. Supportive Care in Cancer was the most productive journal, and the Journal of Clinical Oncology was the most co-cited journal. The keywords representing the research hotspots were “quality of life,” “care,” “cost,” etc. Keywords burst detection indicated that “financial toxicity,” “survivors,” “impact,” “burden,” “income,” and “experience” have become the new research frontiers in the last 5 years. There is an overall upward trend in the research on FT of breast cancer over the last 30 years, which has important and ongoing research value. There is still a paucity of relevant research and more collaboration between authors, institutions, and countries is needed in the future to identify future research directions.