Bibliometric Analysis of Scientific Output Growth in Lung Transplantation

Background: Lung transplantation has recently emerged as a scientifically validated curative therapeutic modality for patients afflicted with end-stage lung disease. This study aimed to conduct a global bibliometric analysis of research articles on lung transplantation between 1983 and 2021. Methods: Employing the Web of Science database, a bibliometric analysis was conducted to assess the expansion of scientific output within the field of lung transplantation. We searched specific bibliometric characteristics such as language, and year of publication, first author, institutional affiliation, main publishing journals, highly cited articles, and additionally, we made comparisons of the most productive countries. The VOS viewer program and the open-source visualization software Biblioshiny (version 2.0) were used to perform the bibliometric analysis. Results: We identified 10.467 articles on lung transplantation published between 1983-2021. 94.898% of them were published in the SCI-E index. The articles were from 101 different research areas. The publications were from 81 different countries globally. And mostly from the USA (41.196%), Germany (7.118%), and Canada (6.372%). The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation was the mostly published journal. 4,793 of the publications were published in the last 10 years with a 78,781 citation number in total. The highest number of publications and citations was in 2021. Conclusion: The majority of cutting-edge research findings are focused on only a few developed nations, and exchanges with emerging nations are still in their infancy. The USA has a strong, commanding position among the active countries in lung transplantation.