Vaccines may play an important role in cancer prevention. This bibliometric study in the field of vaccine and cancer prevention is designed to evaluate key research advances, identify existing deficiencies, and provide reference for future investigations. A total of 2916 original articles published in English from 1992 to 2022 were extracted from the Web of Science core collection. America (1,277) and the National Cancer Institute (82) were the most productive country and institution in this field, respectively. Vaccine was not only the most co-cited journal but also the most influential. Garland SM was the most prolific author, and Bosch FX was the most influential co-cited author. The keywords "cervical cancer" had the highest frequency. "Nanovaccines," "vaccine acceptance" and "coverage" were the new research hotspots in this field. Currently, although an increasing number of publications involve vaccine and cancer prevention studies, most of them are related to cervical cancer, and few other cancers, suggesting the need to investigate other cancer prevention vaccines. The promising research hotspots, such as nanovaccines, vaccine acceptance, and vaccine coverage should be the focus of investigation. The study provides the current status and trends in clinical research on vaccine and cancer prevention, enabling researchers to identify hotspots and explore new study directions. In the future, vaccines are expected to play a key role in multiple cancer prevention.
Keywords: Bibliometric; cancer; cervical cancer; prevention; vaccine; virus.
What is the context? Currently, cancer is the leading cause of death worldwide and poses a significant burden due to increasing incidence, high mortality, and heavy economic costs. One effective way to prevent cancers is by using cancer prevention vaccines such as the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. By preventing an infection that can progress to cancer and reducing the morbidity and economic burden, HPV vaccines have played a positive role in the fight against cervical cancer. The potential of vaccines as a cancer prevention strategy is significant. However, the shortcomings, progress, hotspots and frontiers of global research in the field of vaccine and cancer prevention remain unclear.What is new? In this study, a bibliometric analysis was conducted from multiple aspects such as countries, institutions, authors, co-cited authors/journals/references and keywords. The analysis was designed to evaluate the important research progress in vaccine and cancer prevention, to explore the research hotspots and frontiers, and to identify existing problems and deficiencies. It provides a valuable reference for future research directions.What is the impact? Excluding cervical and liver cancer, few other cancers have been investigated in the field of vaccine and cancer prevention, suggesting the need for intensive studies focusing on other cancer prevention vaccines. Key areas for investigation include nanovaccines, vaccine acceptance, and vaccine coverage. In the future, vaccines are expected to play a more important role in prevention of cancers beyond cervical cancer prevention.