Objective: The objective of this study was to perform an analysis of global cancer surgery research and development trends over the last 10 years across 21 countries.
Background: Surgery is the main modality for cancer cure and control globally. Yet, in comparison to other areas such as cancer drugs, we know little about ongoing research activities to inform policymakers.
Methods: Two subfield filters, surgery research and oncology, were developed and applied to Web of Science. The intersection of these 2 filters identified papers in surgical oncology, and their bibliographic details were downloaded for analysis. This included matching of 5-year citation counts to the papers, impact factor, geographical analysis by country, translational collaboration, involvement in clinical trials, citation on clinical guidelines, and percentage of reviews.
Result: Surgical oncology represents about 9% of all cancer research-low in comparison with surgery's contribution to cancer treatment. The US published the most, followed by Japan which had a high relative commitment to surgery within cancer research, followed by the large West European countries. Although Sweden's papers were relatively basic, it participated the most in clinical trials. Its papers were also the most cited on clinical guidelines, but contained relatively few reviews, where the UK, Greece, and Belgium scored best. Surgical oncology papers are generally not well cited compared with cancer research overall, but on this measure the Netherlands, the US, and Sweden scored best. International collaboration was measured relative to what might have been expected, on this indicator Canada, Switzerland, and the US were the best performers.
Conclusions: Globally, low activity-low funding cycle needs to be addressed by new national and supranational policies to support surgical oncology research.