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Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Goethe-University, Frankfurt, GermanyDivision of Social Medicine and Epidemiology, Institute of Occupational Medicine, Social Medicine and Environmental Medicine, Goethe-University, Frankfurt, GermanyDepartment of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Keck School of Medicine of USC, Los Angeles, California, USA
Division of Social Medicine and Epidemiology, Institute of Occupational Medicine, Social Medicine and Environmental Medicine, Goethe-University, Frankfurt, Germany
Division of Social Medicine and Epidemiology, Institute of Occupational Medicine, Social Medicine and Environmental Medicine, Goethe-University, Frankfurt, Germany
Division of Social Medicine and Epidemiology, Institute of Occupational Medicine, Social Medicine and Environmental Medicine, Goethe-University, Frankfurt, Germany
Division of Social Medicine and Epidemiology, Institute of Occupational Medicine, Social Medicine and Environmental Medicine, Goethe-University, Frankfurt, Germany
Division of Social Medicine and Epidemiology, Institute of Occupational Medicine, Social Medicine and Environmental Medicine, Goethe-University, Frankfurt, Germany
Division of Social Medicine and Epidemiology, Institute of Occupational Medicine, Social Medicine and Environmental Medicine, Goethe-University, Frankfurt, Germany
Division of Social Medicine and Epidemiology, Institute of Occupational Medicine, Social Medicine and Environmental Medicine, Goethe-University, Frankfurt, Germany
Division of Social Medicine and Epidemiology, Institute of Occupational Medicine, Social Medicine and Environmental Medicine, Goethe-University, Frankfurt, Germany
Uterine fibroids can severely impact a woman’s quality of life, result in significant morbidity and are a leading indication for hysterectomy. Many aspects of the disease remain largely obscure. Despite these knowledge gaps, no detailed maps of the global fibroid research architecture have yet been generated. This study used the NewQIS approach to assess worldwide research productivity, encompassing numerous aspects of the scientific output, quality and socioeconomic features. Regression analysis indicated an increase in fibroid research activity in the investigated time periods. Global research output was dominated by leading Western countries, with the USA at the forefront, but also by East Asian countries. Socioeconomic benchmarking revealed that Taiwan had the highest fibroid research activity per GDP, with a calculated average of 279.46 fibroid-related publications per 1000 billion USD GDP. Finland was the most active country with respect to research activity per population size. Subject area analyses revealed major differences in research focuses, for example ‘Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Medical Imaging’ was assigned to 29.92% of South Korean and to only 10.38% of US-American publications. In conclusion, this analysis of global fibroid research activity illustrates a multitude of important features ranging from quantitative and semi-qualitative fibroid research aspects to socioeconomic benchmarking.
). However, the accurate prevalence of fibroids is largely unknown because the majority remain asymptomatic and undiagnosed. In a population-based study conducted in the USA, 51% of randomly selected premenopausal women with no previous history of myomas received an ultrasound-based diagnosis of uterine fibroids (
). Leiomyomas cause significant morbidity due to abnormal uterine bleeding and pelvic pressure symptoms. Hence, they have great impact on the quality of life of many women and the healthcare system in general (
). Also, no clear insight into uterine fibroid epidemiology has yet been achieved. Future research into the genetic background and modifiable risk factors may shed light on fibroid prevention and provide new approaches to non-surgical and surgical fibroid treatment (
). It is for these reasons, as well as the high myoma prevalence, that further multidisciplinary, translational and clinical research is needed. To plan new research strategies and to supply decision-makers with information concerning funding strategies, scientometric approaches may be of help for uterine fibroid research. It is therefore the objective of the present study to assess scientific performance in the field of uterine fibroid research over the past century using the tools of the ‘New Quality and Quantity Indices in Science’ (NewQIS) platform (
). We established this computing platform in 2009 as an international, multidisciplinary project, and it has been used to assess more than 50 different biomedical entities to date. The NewQIS platform approach encompasses advanced visualization algorithms such as Gastner and Newman's density-equalizing calculations, indices modified for country-specific contributions to the current body of literature based on the concept of the Hirsch index (h-index) (
). The following search strategy was used to identify fibroid-related research data: fibroid* OR fibroma* OR fibromyoma* OR leiomyoma* OR myoma* [Title] and uteri* OR uterus OR myometr* OR myomectom* OR hysterectomy OR GnRH OR emboli*ation OR *fertil* OR reproduct* OR pregnan* OR abort* OR miscarriage* OR pelvi* OR gynecolog* OR obstetric* OR menorrhagia OR bleeding OR anemia OR oestrogen OR steroid* OR *menopaus* OR black OR afroamerica* OR nullipar* OR submucous OR intramural OR subsero* OR intracavitar* OR cervi* [Topic] NOT cutan* OR skin OR *esophag* OR gastr* OR gallbladder OR liver OR spine [Title] NOT ‘gastrointestinal bleed*’ OR ‘GI bleed*’ OR ‘rectal bleed*’ OR ‘vaginal leiomyoma*’ OR *nasal OR ‘*vascular leiomyoma*’ OR ‘jejunal leiomyoma*’ OR ‘duodenal leiomyoma*’ OR ‘leiomyoma* of the duodenum’ OR ‘leiomyoma* of the jejunum’ OR appendiceal leiomyoma OR ‘intestinal leiomyoma*’ OR ‘Leiomyoma* of the urinary bladder’ OR ‘bladder leiomyoma*’ OR urethral leiomyoma OR ‘cardi* leiomyoma*’ OR ‘cardi* fibroma*’ OR chondromyxoid OR fibromatosis OR ‘leiomyoma of the breast’ OR ‘skin leiomyoma*’ OR ‘*esophag* leiomyoma*’ OR ‘gastr* leiomyoma*’ OR ‘colon* leiomyoma*’ OR ‘benign metastasizing leiomyoma*’ OR ‘mesosalphinx leiomyoma*’ OR ‘fibroma* of the jaw*’ OR odontogenic OR ‘Collagenous Fibroma*’ OR ‘Nuchal Fibroma*’ OR ‘leiomyoma of the vulva’ OR ‘soft tissue leiomyoma’ OR male OR ‘black bear’ OR ‘Colon* Polyp’ OR ‘endocardial fibroma*’ OR ‘*pharyngeal fibroma*’ OR ‘ventricular fibroma’ OR ‘pulmonary emboli*ation’ OR ‘ovar* leiomyoma*’ OR ‘ovar* fibroma*’ OR bone [Topic].
The search covered the time period between 1900 and 2015. This search term was entered in the WoS as described previously for other areas of medicine (
). All document types were included in the analysis.
Data analysis and categorization
As previously described, retrieval of the metadata with exact bibliographic details of all uterine fibroid-related publications was followed by numerous sorting and analysing steps (
). These steps included analysis for originating countries, languages, document types, citations, cited references, year published and subject categories. Then, amongst other things, research-specific, country-specific h-indices were constructed. The h-index was developed by Jorge Hirsch in 2005 in order to gauge the quality attributed to the scientific achievement of single authors (
In order to assess the relative contributions of highly active nations in uterine fibroid research with regard to their socioeconomic status and financial resources, the national gross domestic product (GDP) was related to the country-specific uterine fibroid research activities. Economic facts and the classification of countries according to their income were obtained from the World Factbook (
The core technique of the NewQIS program consists of an algorithm that generates world maps visualizing quantitative and qualitative assessments in a specific research area (
). In the present study, fibroid research-specific world maps were generated using density-equalizing mapping procedures (DEMP): after transfer of the metadata to Excel charts and parameter analysis, uterine fibroid-specific DEMPs were created based on methods previously published by
. The territories of the different fibroid research-publishing countries were separated from each other and resized in proportion to the selected fibroid research-specific variable of interest (i.e. country-specific h-indices).
Analysis of uterine fibroid research collaborations
To analyse national and international research collaborations, all affiliations of authors that published fibroid-specific publications were collected and investigated as previously described for other diseases (
). A relationship of two authors was identified as a collaboration if they worked in different countries and contributed to the same publication. A chart diagram was constructed with vectors representing the quantity of the collaborative work by their width and shade of grey.
Results
Density-equalizing mapping
Between 1900 and 2015 a total of 6176 documents related to uterine fibroids were identified. The first 20 publications were authored in 1900. From the 1990s to the new millennium, around 100 publications were published each year. After 2002 this number increased to more than 200 articles per year, and from 2013 onwards more than 300 articles per year were authored (Figure 1A). Regression analysis from 1970 to 2015 identified an r2 value of 0.91. In the country-specific analysis, authors from 95 countries participated in uterine fibroid research with scientists from the USA displaying the highest fibroid research activity (n = 2185 fibroid-related publications). They were followed by the UK with n = 411 publications, Japan (n = 407), Germany (n = 310), Italy (n = 309), China (n = 243), France (n = 207), Canada (n = 152), Taiwan (n = 148) and South Korea (n = 137) (Figure 1B). DEMP analysis visualized the research activity of individual countries by the distortion of the global map with a focus on North America, Europe and Far East Asia including Japan, China, Taiwan and South Korea (Figure 1B).
Figure 1Density-equalizing map of global uterine fibroid research activity. (A) Number of publications. (B) Number of published items per year.
The total citation analysis indicated a leading position of the USA with a total of n = 41,524 citations related to fibroid-specific publications. This was followed by the UK (n = 6984) and Japan (n = 5974) (Figure 2A). Fibroid-specific h-index analysis for each country also showed a leading position of the USA with an h-index of 92, meaning that 92 fibroid-related publications authored by US-American scientists were being cited at least 92 times. The USA was followed by the UK (h-index = 44), Japan and Italy (h-index = 40 each) (Figure 2B). The average citation number per fibroid publication attributed to every country investigated was analysed. This number was termed the citation rate (cr). Countries that published fewer than 30 myoma publications were excluded from this particular analysis. In the cr ranking, Sweden was leading the field with a cr of 22.78, followed by Finland (cr = 21.95). The USA had a cr of 19.00 and articles from the UK received 16.99 average citations per publication (Figure 2C).
Figure 2Density-equalizing maps of global uterine fibroid research quality. (A) Total number of fibroid-specific citations per country. (B) Fibroid-specific h-indices. (C) Fibroid-specific citation rates (threshold of 30 publications per country).
Socioeconomic analysis of uterine fibroid research
In order to assess uterine fibroid research activities with regard to the socioeconomic status of a country, the GDP of each country in 1000 billion (bn) USD was used, serving as a proxy measure for total economic strength and resources that can be dedicated to research. Among high-income countries, Taiwan was ranked first with 148 uterine fibroid-related research papers and a calculated average of 279.46 fibroid-related publications per 1000 bn USD GDP (RGDP). It was followed by Israel (RGDP = 266.62), and Finland (RGDP = 243.36) (Table 1). The UK had an RGDP = 139.56, and the USA reached an RGDP of 125.43. Turkey was identified as the upper middle-income country with the highest RGDP (169.95) whereas China had a RGDP value of 23.41.
Table 1Socioeconomic analysis of fibroid research of the most active countries.
Country
No. of articles
GDP in 1000 bn USD
GDP per capita
Population total in mill.
Articles/GDP in 1000 bn USD
Ranking 1
Articles/GDP per capita
Ranking 2
Articles/population in mill.
Ranking 3
Finland
66
0.2712
40.5
5.26
243.36
HI3
1.63
HI19
12.55
HI1
Israel
81
0.3038
33.4
7.82
266.62
HI2
2.43
HI12
10.36
HI2
Sweden
77
0.5701
44.7
9.72
135.06
HI8
1.72
HI18
7.92
HI3
Belgium
72
0.5347
41.7
10.44
134.65
HI9
1.73
HI17
6.90
HI4
USA
2185
17.42
54.8
318.9
125.43
HI10
39.87
HI1
6.85
HI5
UK
411
2.945
37.7
63.74
139.56
HI7
10.90
HI2
6.45
HI6
Taiwan
148
0.5296
43.6
23.35
279.46
HI1
3.39
HI10
6.34
HI7
Switzerland
48
0.7121
55.2
8.06
67.41
HI20
0.87
HI21
5.96
HI8
Netherlands
100
0.8664
47.4
16.87
115.42
HI12
2.11
HI14
5.93
HI9
Italy
309
2.148
34.5
61.68
143.85
HI6
8.96
HI4
5.01
HI10
Australia
106
1.444
46.6
22.5
73.41
HI18
2.27
HI13
4.71
HI11
Denmark
26
0.3408
44.3
5.56
76.29
HI17
0.59
HI23
4.68
HI12
Greece
49
0.238
25.8
10.77
205.88
HI4
1.90
HI16
4.55
HI13
Canada
152
1.789
44.5
34.83
84.96
HI15
3.42
HI8
4.36
HI14
Germany
310
3.86
44.7
80.99
80.31
HI16
6.94
HI5
3.83
HI15
Austria
29
0.4371
45.4
8.22
66.35
HI21
0.64
HI22
3.53
HI16
Japan
407
4.616
37.8
127.1
88.17
HI14
10.77
HI3
3.20
HI17
France
207
2.847
40.4
66.25
72.71
HI19
5.12
HI6
3.12
HI18
South Korea
137
1.41
35.4
49.03
97.16
HI13
3.87
HI7
2.79
HI19
Czech Republic
25
0.2057
28.4
10.62
121.54
HI11
0.88
HI20
2.35
HI20
Poland
83
0.5466
24.4
38.34
151.85
HI5
3.40
HI9
2.16
HI20
Spain
93
1.407
33
47.73
66.10
HI22
2.82
HI11
1.95
HI21
Turkey
137
0.8061
19.6
81.61
169.95
UMI1
6.99
UMI2
1.68
UMI1
South Africa
32
0.3501
12.7
48.37
91.40
UMI2
2.52
UMI4
0.66
UMI2
Brazil
86
2.353
15.2
202.6
36.55
UMI4
5.66
UMI3
0.42
UMI3
Russia
48
1.857
24.8
142.47
25.85
HI23
1.94
HI15
0.34
HI22
Egypt
27
0.2864
11.1
86.89
94.27
LMI1
2.43
LMI2
0.31
LMI1
Iran
25
0.4041
16.5
80.84
61.87
UMI3
1.52
UMI5
0.31
UMI4
China
243
10.38
12.9
1355.7
23.41
UMI5
18.84
UMI1
0.18
UMI5
India
98
2.05
5.8
1236.3
47.80
LMI2
16.90
LMI1
0.08
LMI2
Sources for GDP (current prices in 1000 bn US dollars) and GDP per capita (current prices in 1000 US dollars): International Monetary Fund.
Also, the country-specific uterine fibroid publications were related to the population size. Here, Finland was the most active high-income country with 12.55 publications per million inhabitants (Rpop), followed by Israel (Rpop = 10.36), Sweden (Rpop = 7.92), Belgium (Rpop = 6.90) and the USA (Rpop = 6.85) (Figure 3A). In the upper middle-income country ranking, Turkey was ranked in first position with an Rpop of 1.68, followed by South Africa (0.66). China had an Rpop of 0.18 (Table 1). When the economic strength of a country was analysed using the GDP in bn USD per capita (Rpc), the USA was ranked as the first high-income country with an index of Rpc = 39.87, followed by the UK (Rpc = 10.90) and Japan (Rpc = 10.77) (Figure 3B, Table 1).
Figure 3Density-equalizing maps of global uterine fibroid research socioeconomic figures. (A) Publications/population in mill. (B) Publications/GDP in 1000 billion (bn) USD, threshold: ≥ 30 specific publications.
In the past two decades, the leading subject categories of uterine fibroid research included ‘Obstetrics and Gynecology’, ‘Reproductive Biology’ and ‘Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Medical Imaging’. Between 1966 and 2015, the chronological development of the subject areas was analysed in greater detail: we noted a prominent increase in the publication number in the field of ‘Reproductive Biology’, with a growth of 17.1% between 1986 and 1990 and of 23.4% between 2011 and 2015. It was striking that ‘Public Health’ did not belong to the most active subject areas in myoma research (Figure 4A). When subject area analysis was conducted for highly active uterine fibroid research countries, major differences were found for the field of ‘Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Medical Imaging’. Here, South Korea's proportion totalled 29.92% while only 10.38% of publications dedicated to this area were attributed to the USA (Figure 4B).
Figure 4Subject area analysis of uterine fibroid research. (A) Relative proportions of the most assigned subject areas in five-year intervals between 1965 and 2014. (B) Proportions of the most assigned subject areas in most active countries.
In total, 476 international collaborations (n) contributed to the 6176 overall publications. The USA was the most active country, participating in 268 collaborative relationships representing 56.3% of all international collaborations. The USA was followed by the UK, with n = 91 collaborations, Italy (n = 73) and Germany (n = 72), respectively. The most common bilateral collaborations were found between US-American scientists and their Italian, Canadian and German counterparts (Figure 5).
Figure 5Uterine fibroid research collaborations between countries. Numbers in brackets (publication numbers/number of collaborative publications), threshold: ≥ 20 collaborations of a single country.
The number of institutions per country devoted to uterine fibroid research was also analysed using DEMP techniques. Figure 6 illustrates that 720 different US-American institutions participated in fibroid research. The USA was followed by Japan (224 institutions), the UK (211 institutions), Germany (165 institutions), Italy (161 institutions) and France (155 institutions). In China, 142 institutions were working on uterine fibroid research (Figure 6).
Figure 6Density-equalizing mapping of institutions. Total number of fibroid research-performing institutions per country.
Uterine fibroids represent the most common benign tumours of the female reproductive system. They cause significant morbidity and deterioration in the quality of life of many women worldwide (
). The pathophysiology of myomas is still largely obscure, with altered smooth muscle cell proliferation and disordered angiogenesis playing prominent roles (
), new research efforts are needed. Therefore, this analysis was performed to present preliminary data on the global background of fibroid research over the past century. In contrast to the numerous studies already existing for OB/GYN entities such as endometriosis (
), detailed density-equalizing maps do not yet exist for the field of uterine fibroid research.
We want to address some limitations before discussing the main findings of the study: as previously stated, one limitation of this study is based upon the fact that the WoS includes predominantly journals published in the English language (
). Therefore, non-English articles may be under-represented in our search. However, scientists usually publish their high-quality research in English journals, which limits this particular bias. Another bias is linked to our investigated parameters based on citation counts. High citation numbers are believed to reflect high scientific quality. However, this relationship is biased by the so-called Matthew effect (
): publications by renowned scientists will be cited more than works by lesser known scientists. Boosted mainly by the author's popularity in the field, the citation count of these papers increases exponentially right after publication (
From a historical perspective, general uterine fibroid research activity over the past decades develops similarly to other areas of science. We identified only minimal scientific activity until the 1970s. During the following two decades, a strong increase in research productivity was noted. Publication numbers in the field have increased dramatically since the late 1990s and reached the striking output of 300 annual publications after 2013. Interestingly, the nature of uterine fibroid research differs from other gynaecological disorders. This can be concluded from the subject area analysis, in which a large percentage of publications was attributed to subject areas such as ‘radiology’, whereas public health issues were of limited interest. By contrast, researchers in ‘gestational diabetes’ or ‘caesarean section’ also dedicated their scientific activity to the important field of ‘Public Health’ (
) and burden many women around the globe by affecting their quality of life. Hence, we underline the imminent need to target this tumour by interventions in the field of public health. Funding agencies may pay specific attention to grant proposals in this area focusing on organized efforts raising awareness and implementing interventions within the society, organizations or the community.
From a country-specific viewpoint, the pattern of uterine fibroid research productivity largely parallels research activity in other areas of biomedical sciences (
). High-income countries – the USA in particular – are leaders in the field of uterine fibroid research. This finding is not surprising due to the surgical (i.e. novel approaches) and technical (i.e. diagnostic) equipment required for the medical care of leiomyoma patients and related research, which is dependent on a high level of industrialization (‘high tech’). Within our study, a particularly outstanding position was occupied by the USA. Besides its dominance regarding the overall research activity related to myomas, the USA was also found in the leading position when analyses of the total citation count or the country-specific h-indices were performed. We attribute this prominent role of the USA to the outstanding overall resources this country attributes to research and development in general, e.g. 2.7% of its GDP in 2013 (http://databank.worldbank.org/data/reports.aspx?source=2&series=GB.XPD.RSDV.GD.ZS&country) supporting the highest number of institutions working on fibroids within the community. Apart from this dominant role of US-American institutions, the UK, Japan and Germany are the most active countries in fibroid research. A similar pattern was revealed in a global research output study that analysed a total of 5,527,558 publications in diverse fields of medicine (
). The USA was found to be the most productive country with an impressive number of 1,893,800 publications. Japan ranked second with 573,473 items followed by Germany (n = 444,775) and the UK (n = 415,499) (
). Interestingly, many East Asian countries play an important role in the international uterine fibroid research community. These nations are represented by Japan, China, Taiwan and South Korea, which belong to the top ten most productive countries. It should be pointed out that this finding is in striking contrast to other gynaecological disorders, i.e. Caesarean section (
Overall research activity is a benchmark, which is heavily dependent on different socioeconomic features and resources. To assess the role of single countries in fibroid research in relation to their population sizes and economic welfare, NewQIS recently introduced a set of socioeconomic parameters into the analysis panel (
). We reviewed international uterine fibroid research activity in context with the GDP of single countries, which was used as a proxy for the nation's capacity to invest in research. Here, Taiwan appeared to be the country with the highest fibroid research activity per 1000 bn USD, followed by Israel and Finland. Based on these results, we acknowledge a potential bias in relating the country-specific publication numbers to the current GDP but not the average GDP over the past century. However, because most of the articles were published in the past 20 years and the GDP ranking of countries had not changed significantly over time, we feel it appropriate to use the current GDP to examine our data in the context of socioeconomic resources of the investigated countries. This approach was also supported and used by numerous other authors working in the bibliometric field (
Assessing global, regional, national and sub-national capacity for public health research: a bibliometric analysis of the Web of Science (TM) in 1996–2010.
When the scientific productivity of a single nation was related to its population size, Finland, Israel and Sweden were found to occupy the top positions. This pattern of Scandinavian countries in prominent positions was also replicated in the analysis of (semi)-qualitative aspects of fibroid research, e.g. the citation rate (cr, the average citations per fibroid publication). Here, Sweden was leading with 22.78 citations per article, followed by Finland (cr = 21.95). Altogether, this finding indicates that the relatively small Scandinavian nations have established effective and efficient research structures that produce high-quality science. This not only applies to Sweden, the traditional host of the Nobel prizes (
When the network of international collaborations was analysed, it was apparent that 7.7% of collaborative articles out of all research publications on myomas (n = 476 out of 6176 fibroid-specific publications) is a rather low rate compared with other fields in gynaecology. We postulate that this finding can be explained by the benign nature of the tumour and the abundance of patients and available specimens, which do not require the performance of complex multinational studies with a focus on chemotherapy, genetic backgrounds, etc. or to establish research networks to share resources. In other fields such as ovarian carcinoma, there are many large international multicentre studies and multinational networks, e.g. the Ovarian Cancer Association Consortium, which translate into prolific, collaborative and high-quality research activities connecting scientists around the globe (
Besides scientific databases such as the WoS, popular search engines like Google may provide useful information on uterine fibroids and related awareness in the general population. In this respect, a recent study by
analysed global search trends for uterine fibroids on the internet using the Google Trends Search Application. The authors reported that the mean annual global search activity on fibroids decreased significantly between 2004 and 2012 (
). In 2004, the mean annual search activity was 77.25% of the overall peak search activity and decreased to 64.41% in 2012. The countries with highest search volume were the USA, Canada, Australia, India and the UK. By contrast, the number of uterine fibroid-related websites grew during this period, from 5680 to almost 70,600 (
). The authors concluded that a decreased relative search activity does not necessarily represent a trend towards declining popularity of the subject. Therefore, it should be noted that the overall popularity, measured by the absolute number of Google searches, actually increased from 2004 to 2012. The authors also stated that the increased number of uterine fibroid-related websites may represent the growing number of people who are burdened by the condition and therefore interested in raising awareness (
). In our study, we see this increasing interest among the general population paralleled by a growing scientific productivity related to uterine fibroids. This is an encouraging development that needs to be further facilitated. Therefore, more resources should be dedicated to research and public health endeavours with a focus on this condition to meet the interest this disease evokes in the general public.
Conclusions
This study represents the first concise analysis of global uterine fibroid research activity. We assessed scientific productivity worldwide with respect to both quantitative (overall research output) and semi-qualitative aspects (citation parameters), and in context with socioeconomic features. By using these metrics, we present the first global picture of the research architecture associated with uterine fibroids and highlight potential shortcomings in the scientific landscape.
Acknowledgements
We thank G Volante for helpful comments. This study is part of a PhD thesis project (TB).
References
Badenhorst A.
Mansoori P.
Chan K.Y.
Assessing global, regional, national and sub-national capacity for public health research: a bibliometric analysis of the Web of Science (TM) in 1996–2010.
Dörthe Brüggmann is a board-certified gynaecologist at the OB/GYN Department, Goethe-University, Frankfurt, Germany, and holds a joint position in the Division of Female Health/Prevention at the Institute of Occupational, Social and Environmental Medicine. Additionally, she serves as an Adjunct Professor in the OB/GYN Department at the USC Keck School of Medicine in Los Angeles.
Key message
This study represents the first global description of the uterine fibroid research landscape over the past century. The multitude of quantitative and semi-qualitative dimensions that were presently assessed demonstrates that this field of OB/GYN clearly differs from other fields and is closely related to surgical and diagnostic issues.
Article info
Publication history
Published online: November 15, 2017
Accepted:
October 20,
2017
Received in revised form:
October 11,
2017
Received:
March 21,
2017
Declaration: The authors report no financial or commercial conflicts of interest.
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