A bibliometric analysis of CD38-targeting antibody therapy in multiple myeloma from 1985 to 2021

BACKGROUND: CD38 is a transmembrane glycoprotein that is relatively highly expressed on multiple myeloma (MM) cells, and CD38-targeting antibodies use pleiotropic mechanisms to kill MM cells. Immunotherapy, with an increased quality of response and acceptable toxicity, shows tremendous potential for treating MM. This research field study aimed to analyze all the relevant literature via bibliometrics to identify its course of development and structural relationships. METHODS: A total of 1,030 relevant articles were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) from 1985 to June 21, 2021. CiteSpace was employed to map authors/references/countries with nodes and links, extract highly cited keywords, analyze the time trends of keywords, recognize cocited authors/references, set timezone or timeline views, analyze burstness and generate a dual map. VOSviewer was used to recognize connections among journals and construct collaboration networks. bibliometric.com was utilized to trace advanced countries/regions in the research field. RESULTS: All of the articles were cited 24,332 times in total, with an average of 23.62 times. Most articles were published in the United States of America (USA), far outweighing other countries/regions. The current hotspots in this field are related to the following keywords: “monoclonal antibody”, “refractory MM”, “idecabtagene vicleucel”, and “B cell maturation antigen (BCMA)”. Ten significant clusters, namely, “flow cytometry”, “daratumumab”, “BCMA”, “cell line”, “antitumor activity”, “gene”, “non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma”, “peripheral blood”, “survival” and “anti-CD38”, were extracted. The mechanism and effectiveness of CD38-targeting antibodies in treating MM have been studied. Future research hotspots will focus on new therapies for relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM) patients. CONCLUSIONS: In the past, efforts were applied to elucidate the mechanism and effectiveness of CD38-targeting antibodies in treating MM. Future research hotspots will focus on anti-BCMA chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) immunotherapy for patients with RRMM. According to this article, new researchers can discover its course of development and structural relationships in this field.