Global research trends on B7-H3 for cancer immunotherapy: A bibliometric analysis (2012-2022)

Immunotherapy has revolutionized cancer treatment. B7-H3 is a promising target for cancer immunotherapy (CI). The present study aimed to utilize bibliometric methods to assess the current research status and explore future trends in the use of B7-H3 for CI. We collected publications related to B7-H3/CI from the Clarivate Web of Science Core Collection database. VOSviewer, Microsoft Excel, the bibliometrix R package, and an online platform were used to conduct qualitative and visualized analyses of the literature. A total of 555 papers were analyzed, revealing a significant increase in annual publications since 2018. The most productive countries were China and the USA, and the leading institutions were Soochow University and Sichuan University. Zang and Ferrone were the most popular authors. Among the journals, Frontiers in Immunology had the highest number of papers, whereas Clinical Cancer Research was the most influential. Historical citation analysis reveals the development of B7-H3/CI. Top-cited papers and keyword analyses were performed to highlight current hotspots in the domain. Using cluster analysis, we classified all keywords into four clusters: “immunotherapy,” “co-stimulatory molecule,” “B7 family,” and “PD-L1.” Finally, Trends analysis suggested that future research might focus on “chimeric antigen receptor,” “pathways,” and “targeting B7-H3.” This is the first bibliometric crosstalk analysis between B7-H3 and CI. Our study illustrates that the topic of B7-H3/CI is very popular and has great clinical implications and that the number of correlative publications will continue to increase. B7-H3-based CI may lead to new research trends.