Research trends of stem cells in ischemic stroke from 1999 to 2018: A bibliometric analysis

Objective: Many studies have evaluated the safety and efficacy of stem cells as therapeutic agents for ischemic stroke. We aimed to quantitatively assess the research trends of stem cell therapy for ischemic stroke. Patients and methods: We searched the Web of Science Core Collection to identify relevant publications between 1999 and 2018. We used HistCite to summarize the critical information, including yearly records, authors, countries/regions, and institutions. VOSviewer was applied to map the collaborations between studies. Based on the title and abstract of each publication, MeSH terms were obtained using Medical Text Indexer to demonstrate evolutions of topic hotspots. Results: From 1999-2018, there were a total of 3,741 publications exploring the prospect of stem cells in ischemic stroke. Annual publication outputs grew from six records to 366 records. Stroke was the most highprofile journal because of its ranking first on the top productive and co-cited journal lists. The United States of America and China were the two most contributive countries of stem-cell research of ischemic stroke. Researchers were supposed to follow studies from productive institutions because of their consistent and systematic investigations in this field. Neural stem cells and mesenchymal stem cells were the most recognized cells for clinical translation. Conclusion: With the growth of publications concerning the role of stem cells in ischemic stroke treatment, bibliometrics helps researchers to get insights of academic collaborations, research trends, and hot topics in the study field.