International Publication Trends in Proteasome Inhibitors: From Tools for Cell Biologists to Anticancer Agents

Background: There has been increased interest in the research of proteasome inhibitors for more than two decades. Hotspots in this field are constantly changing. Objective: This study aimed to investigate trends in proteasome inhibitors research from 1992 to 2018 and compare the contributions of such research from different countries and authors. Methods: We used Excel 2013 and VoSviewer to analyze bibliometric data on the subject of proteasome inhibitors, including the number of publications, citations frequency, H-index, and country contributions and hotspots (keywords of popular scientific fields). Results: A total of 3646 articles were included. The USA contributed the largest percentage of articles (1742), with the most citations (90666) and the highest H-index (139). The journal Blood had the most articles. Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Millennium Pharmaceuticals Incorporation were the most contributive institutions. Keywords could be divided into three clusters: Basic experiment, clinical research, and others. Conclusion: The number of proteasome inhibitors articles has been increasing for the past 27 years. The USA made the largest contribution in this field. Recent studies on the topic of “carfilzomib” are relatively new and should be closely followed in proteasome inhibitors research.