Research of targeted therapy for renal cancer from 2006 to 2022: a bibliometric and visualized analysis

BACKGROUND: This review aimed to analyze the research progress and development trends in targeted therapy (TT) for renal cancer (RC) from 2006 to 2022. METHODS: The Web of Science Core Collection database was searched using the search terms “renal cancer”, “kidney neoplasms”, “kidney cancer”, and “targeted therapy”, and all publications were extracted. VOSviewer version 1.6.18 was used to complete the visual analysis based on the information of publications, including author, journal, subject, year, and institution. RESULTS: A total of 1,136 studies related to TT for RC were found. The top journals in this field were the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Annals of Oncology, and European Urology. Among them, the Journal of Clinical Oncology had the highest number of publications (n=35). In terms of country, the United States had the highest number of publications (n=366). The main document type was article, which accounted for 64.26% of the total publications. CONCLUSIONS: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first bibliometric analysis related to TT for RC. The annual number of publications has exhibited a steady growth trend, with the United States having the greatest contribution in this field. Through an analysis of a keyword time density map, we identified that hypoxia-inducing factor-1, drug resistance and therapeutic targets are the research hotspots and trends in this field.