Emerging Trends and Hot Spots in Sepsis-Associated Encephalopathy Research From 2001 to 2021: A Bibliometric Analysis

Yizhe Zhang; Sifan Chen; Weitian Tian; Hui Zhu; Weiwei Li; Wanbing Dai; Xiao Zhang; Xiyao Gu; Diansan Su

doi:10.3389/fmed.2022.817351

Emerging Trends and Hot Spots in Sepsis-Associated Encephalopathy Research From 2001 to 2021: A Bibliometric Analysis

Front Med (Lausanne). 2022 Feb 28:9:817351. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2022.817351. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Yizhe Zhang¹, Sifan Chen¹, Weitian Tian¹, Hui Zhu¹, Weiwei Li¹, Wanbing Dai¹, Xiao Zhang¹, Xiyao Gu¹, Diansan Su¹

Affiliation

¹ Department of Anesthesiology, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.

Abstract

Study objectives: To evaluate sepsis-associated encephalopathy (SAE) research and to quantitatively and qualitatively predict research hot spots using bibliometric analysis.

Methods: We extracted relevant publications from the Web of Science Core Collection on July 28, 2021. We investigated the retrieved data by bibliometric analysis (e.g. co-cited and cluster analysis, keyword co-occurrence) using the software CiteSpace and VOSviewer, the Online Analysis Platform of Literature Metrology (http://bibliometric.com/) and Bibliometrix to analyse and predict the trends and hot spots in this field.

Main results: We identified 1,582 published articles and reviews on SAE from 2001 to 2021. During this period, the number of manuscripts on SAE increased steadily and peaked in 2021. The USA and China were the leading countries that had a critical impact on SAE research. Among all institutions, Vanderbilt University and Pittsburgh University held leading positions and became central in the collaboration network. Among all the journals, Critical Care Medicine published the maximum number of manuscripts in the field of SAE within 20 years. Dal-Pizzol Felipe was the most productive author (61 papers) and received the largest number of citations (930 citations). Co-citation cluster analysis revealed that the most popular terms on SAE in the manner of cluster labels were critical illness, sepsis-associated encephalopathy, polymicrobial sepsis, posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome, rat brain, intensive care unit, prior sepsis, molecular hydrogen, inflammation drive, metabolic encephalopathies, delirium pathophysiology, and clinical neuroscience. Keyword burst detection indicated that neuroinflammation, blood-brain barrier (BBB) and mitochondria dysfunction were the current research hot spots.

Conclusions: Our study revealed that neuroinflammation, blood-brain barrier, and mitochondria dysfunction had been the research foci of SAE over the past 20 years. These have emerged as the basis for transformation from basic research to clinical application in finding effective methods for the prevention and treatment of SAE.

Keywords: CiteSpace; VOSviewer; bibliometric analysis; co-citation analysis; hot spots; sepsis-associated encephalopathy.