Abstract
BACKGROUND/PURPOSE: Accumulating evidence indicates that methylation modification alterations involve in the development and progression of oral cancer. The purpose of this study was to analyze the scientometric characteristics of methylation modification in oral potentially malignant disorders (OPMD) and oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). MATERIALS AND METHODS: All the papers on methylation research in OPMD/OSCC were comprehensively retrieved from the Scopus database with emphasis on the identification of methylation related genes. RESULTS: A total of 365 papers on methylation research in OPMD/OSCC were retrieved. The total citation count was 9998 and the h index was 53 for all the papers. The common keywords included prognosis, sensitivity and specificity, smoking, cohort analysis, saliva, receiver operating characteristic, follow up, risk factor, cancer diagnosis, tumor suppressor gene, biological marker. Among the 365 papers, a total of 542 methylated genes and 65 microRNAs were identified. The most common methylated gene was p16, followed by MGMT, DAPK/DAPK1, E-cadherin, RASSF1/RASSF1A, KIF1A, TIMP3, RUNX3, LINE1, CDH1, TERT, ZAP70, FLI1, GP1BB, and ZNF582. The most frequent methylation related microRNA was miR-296, followed by miR-193 and miR-137. CONCLUSION: This study for the first time elucidated the scientometric characteristics of all the publications on methylation modification in oral carcinogenesis, and would provide new insights for researchers to comprehend the methylation specific gene profile related OPMD/OSCC.