The use of positron emission tomography in thyroid cancer: a bibliometric analysis

BACKGROUND: Thyroid cancer is a common malignant tumor, and its incidence is rising. Positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET-CT) is of great value in diagnosing and monitoring thyroid cancer. The purpose of this study is to analyze the current research status of the use of PET-CT in thyroid cancer. METHODS: We used the Science Citation Index-Expanded (SCI-E) database in the Web of Science Core Collection (WOSCC) as the data source for the literature search. The search was carried out with (“thyroid cancer” OR “thyroid carcinoma”) AND “positron emission tomography”, and the results were analyzed with the bibliometric R software package. The analysis included the number of documents published in this field by each country, the cooperative relationship between countries, the number of documents published by institutions, the cooperative relationship between institutions, the number of documents published by researchers, the cooperative relationship between researchers, the location of researchers being cited, the number of documents published in journals, and the use of keywords. RESULTS: One thousand and six hundred and seven papers were finally included, and the number of published papers each year showed a trend of fluctuating growth before reaching a peak in 2010, followed by a decreasing trend. The United States published the largest number of documents and was cited far more frequently than other countries. The research institute with the largest number of published articles was the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, USA. The cooperation relationship of authors presented a clustered distribution, and the authors in the same cluster often came from the same research institution or country. The professional journal “Thyroid” published the largest amount of studies in this field. According to Bradford’s rules, nine core journals in this field were determined. The result of our keyword analysis showed that the most commonly used keyword was “positron emission tomography”, followed by “cancer” and “carcinoma”. The research in this field focused on follow-up and management of thyroid cancer, especially papillary thyroid cancer. CONCLUSIONS: The number of studies in this field shows a decreasing trend, and PET is essential in the follow-up monitoring of thyroid cancer patients.