Current trends and hotspots of etiology of auditory neuropathy in the past 30 years: A bibliometric analysis

Objective: To make an overview of global research trends in the etiology of auditory neuropathy (AN) over the past 30 years using a bibliometric approach.

Methods: Bibliometric analyses were conducted by GraphPad Prism 9.0, Citespace 6.2.R2, and an online analysis platform to analyze and visualize publications related to etiology of AN from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) database from 1996 to 2022. Additionally, genetic factors in human AN were analyzed.

Results: In total, 604 original articles and reviews related to the etiology of AN from the WoSCC were included for bibliometric analysis. The results showed that annual publications and trend on etiology of AN increased linearly from 2000. Among them, the United States and China published nearly 400 records (40.32%). From the 604 records, a total of 752 keywords and 10 clustered network maps were extracted by Citespace, and 'mutations' was among the top 10 keywords. Analysis of genetic factors found that more than 30 genes were related to AN, and the latest burst occurred in 2022.

Conclusion: The bibliometric analysis mapped the global research trends and analyzed hotspots for future. The results indicated that the annual publications increased linearly from 2000. Notably, there was a burst in genetic factors in 2022, which identified that genetic factor would remain a focus of future research.