Research on stem cell therapy for spinal cord injury: a bibliometric and visual analysis from 2018-2023

Ruxing Liu; Bo Peng; Jie Yuan; Jiahao Hu; Jianxin Yang; Nan Shan; Qichao Li; Bin Zhao; Chaojian Xu; Yongfeng Wang

doi:10.3389/fgene.2024.1327216

Research on stem cell therapy for spinal cord injury: a bibliometric and visual analysis from 2018-2023

Front Genet. 2024 Feb 6:15:1327216. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2024.1327216. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Ruxing Liu^{1

2}, Bo Peng^{1

2}, Jie Yuan^{1

2}, Jiahao Hu^{1

2}, Jianxin Yang³, Nan Shan⁴, Qichao Li⁴, Bin Zhao^{1

2}, Chaojian Xu^{1

2}, Yongfeng Wang^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Orthopedics, Second Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, China.
² Department of Shanxi Key Laboratory of Bone and Soft Tissue Injury Repair, Second Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, China.
³ Department of Pain Management, Second Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, China.
⁴ The Second Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, China.

Abstract

Objectives: The aim of this study was to conduct a bibliometric analysis of the literature on stem cell treatment for spinal cord injury to gain an intuitive understanding of how the field is progressing, discover topics of interest, and determine what development trends are emerging in this field. Background: Spinal cord injury and its complications often cause an enormous economic burden, and postinjury repair and treatment have always been challenging in clinical and scientific research. Stem cell therapy for spinal cord injury can prevent immune rejection and induce the release of neuroprotective and anti-inflammatory factors to reduce the production of stress-related proteins, reactive oxygen species, and inflammatory reactions. Methods: We analyzed the number and quality of publications in the field of stem cell therapy in spinal cord injury between 2018.01.01 and 2023.06.30 in the core collection database of Web of Science. CiteSpace and VOSviewer were used to sort and summarize these studies by country, institution, authors' publications, and collaborative networks. In addition, the research topics of interest were identified and summarized. Results: This study ultimately included 2,150 valid papers, with the number of publications showing a gradual upward trend. The country, institution, author and journal with the greatest number of publications and citations are China, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dai JW, and the International Journal of Molecular Sciences, respectively. The top three high-frequency keyword clusters were hereditary paraplegia, reactive astrocytes and tissue engineering. Conclusion: With the help of visual analysis, we identified general trends and research topics of interest in the field of spinal cord injury over the last 5 years. Our findings suggest that stem cell transplantation for spinal cord injury and exosome therapy may be a focus of future research. This study provides a foundation for future research on stem cell therapy as well as clinical efforts in this field.

Keywords: bibliometric analysis; exosome; spinal cord injury; stem cells; tissue engineering.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was supported by General Program of Natural Science Research of Shanxi Basic Research Program (202203021212060, 202203021211040, and 20210302124670); Shanxi Provincial Health Commission major science and technology research project (2021XM10).