Global Trends of Botulinum Toxin Literature: A Bibliometric Analysis of Botulinum Toxin Publications Between 1975 and 2017

BACKGROUND: Botulinum toxin has been effectively used cosmetically and therapeutically for the last decades in a wide range of medical conditions. Although bibliometrics has been a popular and growing study area in recent years, medical literature lacks studies evaluating published botulinum toxin literature. OBJECTIVE: The goal of our study was to evaluate bibliometric features and to perform a detailed trend analysis in the medical literature related to botulinum toxin. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We analyzed all the published documents including the keywords “botulinum toxin” and “botulinum neurotoxin” and commercial brand names of botulinum toxin products between 1975 and 2017. We performed a detailed bibliometric and scientometric assessment in this field. RESULTS: A total of 24,948 articles were retrieved from four databases provided by Web of Science, and most of which were original articles (76.19%). The United States ranked first and dominated literature with 8,729 documents (34.29%) followed by the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy (14.61%, 11.18%, and 5.5%, respectively). The United Kingdom was detected to be the most productive country with the highest productivity (55.09) followed Switzerland, Denmark, and Germany (47.7, 34.01, and 33.98, respectively). The most studied area was neurology (56.1%) and University of California System was the most productive institution. We noted no correlation between publication number and citations by year. CONCLUSION: We found that all top 10 authors and institutions were from developed countries. Physician from developing and the least-developed countries should be supported to carry out novel studies on botulinum toxin.