Analysis of the Research Hotspot of Drug Treatment of Tuberculosis: A Bibliometric Based on the Top 50 Cited Literatures

Objective: The objective of the current study was to analyze the research hotspot of drug treatment for tuberculosis via top literatures.

Materials and methods: A retrospective analysis was performed on June 7th, 2021. Literatures were searched on the Web of Science Core Collection to identify the top 50 cited literatures related to drug treatment of tuberculosis. The characteristics of the literatures were identified. The outcomes included authorship, journal, study type, year of publication, and institution. Cooccurrence network analysis and visualization were conducted using the VOS viewer (Version 1.6.16; Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands).

Results: The top 50 cited literatures were cited 308 to 2689 times and were published between 1982 and 2014. The most studied drugs were the first-line drugs such as isoniazid and rifampicin (n = 22), and drug-resistant tuberculosis was most frequently reported (n = 16). They were published in 18 journals, and the New England Journal of Medicine published the most literatures (n = 18), followed by the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine (n = 7), and the Lancet (n = 6). The authors were from 13 countries, and the authors from the USA published most of the literatures (n = 30), while authors from other countries published less than five literatures. The CDC in the USA (n = 4), the World Health Organization (WHO) (n = 3), and the American Philosophical Society (n = 3) were the leading institutions, and only two authors published at least two top-cited literatures as first authors.

Conclusions: This study provides insights into the development and most important literatures on drug therapy for tuberculosis and evidence for future research on tuberculosis treatment.