ArticleCancers2023
More than Five Decades of Proton Therapy: A Bibliometric Overview of the Scientific Literature.
Article in Cancers, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 18 citations in OpenAlex.
- Proton therapy in Spain: SEOR-SPROMP multidisciplinary recommendations developed through a RAND/UCLA consensus process.Clinical & translational oncology : official publication of the Federation of Spanish Oncology Societies and of the National Cancer Institute of Mexico · 2026Review
- Characterization of a Low-Energy Cyclotron-Based Proton Beam for Preclinical Radiobiological Studies.International journal of particle therapy · 2026Article
- Outcomes following radiotherapy for atypical teratoid/rhabdoid tumor in combination with surgery and intensive chemotherapy: A report from Children's Oncology Group study ACNS0333.Neuro-oncology pediatrics · 2026Article
- Therapeutic Outcomes and Toxicity Mitigation of Proton Beam Therapy in Pediatric Neuro-Oncology: A Systematic Review.Cureus · 2025Review
- Stereotactic Body Radiosurgery Associated With Rectal Displacement using Gelfoam for Sacral Chordomas: Preliminary Report of 3 Cases.Advances in radiation oncology · 2025Article
- Understanding the Radiobiology of Central Nervous System Diseases in the Golden Age of Radiosurgery-Does It Matter?Brain sciences · 2025Review
- Global research trends on nanotechnology and colorectal cancer: a two-decade analysis.Nanomedicine (London, England) · 2025Article
- Role of Proton Beam Therapy in Hepatic Oligometastasis: Review of Evidence.Acta medica Lituanic · 2025Article
- Research trends of glioma-related epilepsy: A bibliometric analysis from 2004 to 2023.Journal of central nervous system disease · 2024Review
- Identification of Distinct Research Gaps that Complement Previous Critiques of Militaristic Language in Relation to Cancer and Other Non-Military Topics.Cancer control : journal of the Moffitt Cancer CenterArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
12 authors at 5 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe therapeutic potential of proton therapy (PT) was first recognized in 1946 by Robert Wilson, and nowadays, over 100 proton centers are in operation worldwide, and more than 60 are under construction or planned. Bibliometric data can be used to perform a structured analysis of large amounts of scientific data to provide new insights, e.g., to assess the growth and development of the field and to identify research trends and hot topics. The aim of this study is to provide a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of the current status and trends in scientific literature in the PT field.
methodsThe literature on PT until the 31st December 2022 in the Scopus database was searched, including the following keywords:
resultsA total of 7335 documents, mainly articles (n = 4794, 65%) and reviews (n = 1527, 21%), were collected from 1946 to 2022 from 1054 sources and 21,696 authors. Of these, roughly 84% (n = 6167) were produced in the last 15 years (2008-2022), in which the mean annual growth rate was 13%. Considering the corresponding author's country, 79 countries contributed to the literature; the USA was the top contributor, with 2765 (38%) documents, of whom 84% were single-country publications (SCP), followed by Germany and Japan, with 535 and 531 documents of whom 66% and 93% were SCP. Considering the themes subanalysis (2002-2022), a total of 7192 documents were analyzed; among all keywords used by authors, the top three were radiotherapy (n = 1394, 21% of documents), intensity-modulated radiotherapy (n = 301, 5%), and prostate cancer (n = 301, 5%). Among disease types, prostate cancer is followed by chordoma, head and neck, and breast cancer. The change in trend themes demonstrated the fast evolution of hotspots in PT; among the most recent trends, the appearance of flash, radiomics,
conclusionsThe results of the present bibliometric analysis showed that PT is an active and rapidly increasing field of research. Themes of the published works encompass the main aspects of its application in clinical practice, such as the comparison with the actual photon-based standard of care technique and the continuing technological advances. This analysis gives an overview of past scientific production and, most importantly, provides a useful point of view on the future directions of the research activities.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.