Beijing, China – Medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) has been the focus of research in the field of thyroid cancer management in the last 20 years along with recurrent laryngeal nerve, according to a new study that analyzed trends in the post-operative management of thyroid cancer between 2003 and 2022.
“Future research is likely to revolve around guidelines and consensus statements on the management of thyroid cancer, [active surveillance], and microcarcinoma in differentiated thyroid cancer,” the researchers wrote in a report that they published in the journal Gland Surgery.
To identify research hotspots and explore future directions in the field of thyroid cancer, the team, led by Guangde Zhang from the Department of Endocrinology, Xiyuan Hospital, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences in Beijing, China, used bibliometric methods.
They searched the literature for articles about the postoperative management of thyroid cancer published between 2003 and 2022.
They identified a total of 1040 articles from 64 countries published in a total of 1400 journals.
“The results revealed an overall upward trend in the number of publications and citations over the past 20 years,” they wrote.
The country that had the largest number of publications was the US, with 282 articles published in this period. The main academic center for the field was Johns Hopkins University.
The journal with the highest number of citations was Thyroid, with 826 publications.
The top 10 citations were mainly guidelines and consensus statements on the management of the disease.
The researchers also identified keyword clusters like “follow-up,” “recurrent laryngeal nerve,” and MTC.
Based on these keywords, the researchers identified management guidelines, association guidelines, active surveillance, microcarcinoma, and differentiated thyroid cancer as research hotspots.
MTC is a rare type of cancer affecting the thyroid gland, which usually presents when a person is between 40 and 50 years of age.