Immune response in heart transplantation: a bibliometric analysis

BACKGROUND: Heart failure is the end stage of various heart diseases. For patients with poor or ineffective response drug treatment, heart transplantation is a reasonable and effective option. With the accumulation of heart transplantation cases, there are more and more studies on the immune response after heart transplantation. The purpose of the present study was to provide a bibliometric analysis of the current status of studies related to immune responses after heart transplantation. METHODS: We searched the Science Citation Index Expanded online database with the following search terms: “heart transplantation” and “immune response”. CiteSpace software was used to analyze the search results, including the annual trend in the number of publications, the annual trend in the number of citations, the distribution of the countries and institutions to which the authors belonged, the distribution of authors, the distribution of the journals that published the literature, and the use of keywords. RESULTS: A total of 1,393 related research papers were included. The top five countries with the greatest number of published papers were the USA, China, Germany, the UK, and Japan. The countries with active cooperation with other countries were the USA, the UK, Germany, China, and Canada. The top five research institutions with the greatest number of published papers were the University of Pittsburgh, Harvard University, Washington University, Stanford University, and Brigham & Women’s Hospital. The research institutions with active cooperation with other institutions were the University of Pittsburgh, Stanford University, Harvard University, Brigham & Women’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School. The top five authors with the most published papers were David K. C. Cooper, Hidetaka Hara, Hayato Iwase, David Ayares, and Cassandra Long. Core journals were Transplantation, Journal of Immunology, and Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences of The United States of America. Keyword analysis revealed that research hotspots changed over time. CONCLUSIONS: Research on immune response after heart transplantation is concentrated in a few countries, and more clinical research is needed in the future.