A Bibliometric Analysis and Visualization of Current Research Trends in Traditional Chinese Medicine for Osteosarcoma

Background: Osteosarcoma (OS), a most common malignant tumor arising from the bone, has a very high mortality and disability rate. Due to its multi-targeted and multi-biologically active natural components, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has a good therapeutic efficacy and minimal side effects. So far, few analyses have summarized the researches of TCM treatment for OS. This study aimed to illustrate the research framework, overall knowledge structure, and development trends of TCM treatment for OS, using a bibliometric analysis and newly developed visualization tools. Methods: Research datasets were acquired from the Web of Science (WOS) database and the time span was defined as “all years”. Articles were tracked using the key words “osteosarcoma”, “Traditional Chinese Medicine”, “Traditional Chinese Medicine Formula”, “Chinese Herb Formula” and “Chinese herbal drug”. Moreover, VOS viewer and Citespace software was used to analyze the data and generate visualization knowledge maps. Annual trends of publications, distribution of institutes, distribution of journals, citation and H-Index status, co-authorship status, research hotspots and co-citation status were analyzed. Results: After reading the abstract or the full text, 223 publications in the WOS database met the requirement. The number of published articles showed a rise but the citation frequency and the H-index of China were relatively low. The cooperation between the countries, institutes and authors were relatively weak. Most publications were basic researches. Most previous researches focused on basic mechanisms of TCM in treating OS, and therapy and improvement of dosage form may become a frontier in this research field. Conclusion: Compared with other fields, this field is still in infancy. The distribution of researches is imbalanced and cooperation between countries, institutions and authors remains to be strengthened. Furthermore, basic research occupies an absolute dominant position, and the exploration of the molecular mechanism of TCM in preventing and treating OS may become a key point in the future.