International trends in pulmonary neuroendocrine cancer studies:a scientometric study

ABSTRACT Introduction Pulmonary neuroendocrine tumors account for approximately 20% of all primary lung tumors. Few studies summarize the current body of pulmonary neuroendocrine tumors studies worldwide. Objective A quantitative scientometric analysis was conducted to evaluate the development of applications and innovations and to analyze their contribution to various areas of improvement in treatment and diagnosis of pulmonary neuroendocrine tumors. Methods We searched for studies published in the last 20 years in the databases United States National Library of Medicine (PubMed), Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO), Scopus, and Web of Science, using the terms ‘pulmonary neuroendocrine tumors’, ‘bronchial neuroendocrine tumors’, ‘bronchial carcinoid tumors’, ‘pulmonary carcinoid’, ‘typical pulmonary carcinoid’, ‘atypical pulmonary carcinoid’, ‘pulmonary carcinoid and diagnosis’, ‘pulmonary carcinoid and treatment’, ‘pulmonary carcinoid and epidemiology’ and ‘pulmonary carcinoid and prognosis’. Results Our results showed the number of publications increased significantly over the study period and was strongly associated with the economic or financial situation of the publications’ countries of origin. We observed a predominance of studies on histological diagnosis compared to treatment, and among the studies related to treatment, a predominance of retrospective studies relative to prospective studies was found. Conclusion Based on the published literature, we concluded research on pulmonary neuroendocrine tumors still seems to be incipient, because it favors studies related to histological characterization of the disease, and therapeutic studies are still predominantly of a retrospective nature.

摘要
引言：肺神经内分泌肿瘤（pulmonary neuroendocrine tumors）约占所有原发性肺肿瘤的20%。目前全球范围内鲜有研究系统梳理该领域的现有研究成果。
研究目的：本研究通过定量科学计量分析，评估肺神经内分泌肿瘤相关研究的应用与创新进展，并剖析其在该疾病诊疗优化各方向中的贡献。
研究方法：我们检索了近20年间发表于美国国家医学图书馆（United States National Library of Medicine, PubMed）、科学电子在线图书馆（Scientific Electronic Library Online, SciELO）、Scopus及Web of Science数据库的相关文献，检索词包括"肺神经内分泌肿瘤（pulmonary neuroendocrine tumors）"、"支气管神经内分泌肿瘤（bronchial neuroendocrine tumors）"、"支气管类癌肿瘤（bronchial carcinoid tumors）"、"肺类癌（pulmonary carcinoid）"、"典型肺类癌（typical pulmonary carcinoid）"、"非典型肺类癌（atypical pulmonary carcinoid）"、"肺类癌与诊断（pulmonary carcinoid and diagnosis）"、"肺类癌与治疗（pulmonary carcinoid and treatment）"、"肺类癌与流行病学（pulmonary carcinoid and epidemiology）"以及"肺类癌与预后（pulmonary carcinoid and prognosis）"。
研究结果：本研究结果显示，在研究周期内相关文献发表量显著增长，且与文献来源国的经济或财政状况高度相关。相较于治疗相关研究，组织病理学诊断领域的研究占比更高；在治疗相关研究中，回顾性研究的占比显著高于前瞻性研究。
研究结论：基于已发表的文献，我们认为肺神经内分泌肿瘤领域的研究仍处于起步阶段：现有研究多聚焦于该疾病的组织病理学特征表征，而治疗相关研究仍以回顾性研究为主。