Abstract
BACKGROUND: Bibliometric review offers a comprehensive and quantitative evaluation of pancreatic cancer research, focusing on journal and author productivity. Despite significant efforts to improve pancreatic cancer outcomes and expand the literature on the topic, there is still insufficient data on influential journals and article impact measures to guide researchers through journal submissions. This article aims to evaluate research productivity and identify influential journals and authors within the field. Utilizing bibliometric indices like impact factor, h-index, and eigenfactor will facilitate the assessment process. METHODS: A comprehensive search on July 1, 2023 in the Scopus database to identify articles related to pancreatic cancer. The search criteria included the keyword "Pancreatic Cancer" in the subject area of "Medicine", limited to English language articles published between January 1989 and December 2022. We calculated publication and citation counts at the article, journal, and first author levels, employing various measures of centrality. Statistical analysis was conducted using the Student t-test. RESULTS: The search yielded 52,154 articles from 3,155 journals with total citations of 1,903,916. The journal with the largest median citations dealing solely with pancreatic cancer was the Annals of Surgery. The journal with the highest number of publications is Pancreas. Six of the top twenty most cited articles were treatment-related articles. Of the top 30 journals by article count, JAMA had the highest median citation count, 340 of 33 articles. The most cited authors list was not associated with high productivity, similarly, the most productive authors were not associated with a high rate of citations. CONCLUSIONS: This study offers valuable insights for researchers and institutions in guiding journal selections and themes identified as popular among the research community. It positively impacts the selection of appropriate journals to submit articles on the topic by easily identifying the most impactful and cited journals. The findings emphasize the growing interest in the field, the emergence of specialized journals, and a focus on treatment-related investigations. Overall, this analysis underscores the relevance of bibliometric approaches in advancing pancreatic cancer research.