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conferenceseries
.com
6
th
World Congress on
October 16-18, 2017 | San Francisco, USA
Breast Cancer & Therapy
Volume 2, Issue 5 (Suppl)
Breast Can Curr Res, an open access journal
Breast Cancer Congress 2017
October 16-18, 2017
Breast-cancer related lymphedema: Publication trends from 2007-2016
Paras Vakharia
Oakland University, USA
B
reast cancer-related lymphedema (BCRL) has been a poorly-researched topic; however, research productivity has increased within
the last decade. We conducted a bibliometric analysis to characterize recent BCRL research and to understand which countries,
institutions, and groups contribute most to the surge in publications over the last decade. A search for indexed English abstracts was
performed in PubMed using search terms of “(“lymphedema”[tiab] or “lymphoedema”[tiab]) AND “breast cancer”[tiab]” from 2007
to 2016. Inclusion criteria were original research articles involving human subjects. Data collected for each article included: name(s)
of the first and last author(s), journal of publication and impact factor (IF), publication year, country of author(s), income level of
country, institution(s) of author(s), study type, and lymphedema study purpose. A total of 1,144 publications were identified, of which
570 met inclusion criteria. The ratio of publications by year is as follows: 2007 (5.6%), 2008 (5.4%), 2009 (7.7%), 2010 (7.7%), 2011
(9.6%), 2012 (11.2%), 2013 (11.2%), 2014 (11.1%), 2015 (14.2%), and 2016 (16.1%). The most common lymphedema study purpose
is diagnostic/educational(35.5%), followed by treatment (30.2%), risk/risk factor (25.3%), and prevention (9%). The greatest number
of articles was the USA (32.8%), Australia (9.6%), South Korea (6.7%), the United Kingdom (5.3%), China (3.7%), and Turkey
(3.7%). Eight of the top ten BCRL research institutions are in the USA, with the remaining two from Australia. The top ten producing
countries are all upper-middle- or high-income countries. BCRL research is predominantly being performed in the USA and other
developed countries. BCRL research is starting to grow as healthcare providers start to focus on quality of life-impairing aspects of
breast cancer. It is vital to describe BCRL research in order to emphasize the need for further investigation into BCRL.
vakhariaparas@gmail.comBreast Can Curr Res 2017, 2:5 (Suppl)
DOI: 10.4172/2572-4118-C1-012