BACKGROUND

Atopic dermatitis (AD) has been a hot research direction of dermatologists for a long time. However, the knowledge structures and theme trends for AD have not yet been studied bibliometrically.

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the distribution pattern and knowledge structure of AD related literatures in PubMed.

METHODS

Bibliographic information was generated by the Bibliographic Item Co-Occurrence Matrix Builder (BICOMB). A visual matrix was created by the gCLUTO software. GraphPad Prism 5 software was used to construct a Strategic diagram analysis. Ucinet 6.0 software and NetDraw 2.084 software were used to generate a social network analysis (SNA).

RESULTS

Among all the extracted MeSH terms and subheadings, 77 MeSH terms/MeSH subheadings with a high-frequency were identified, and hot topics were gathered together into 6 groups. In the strategic diagram, immunology, microbiology, and drug therapy of AD were fully developed. In contrast, prevention, pathology, genetics, metabolism, administration, cost of illness, quality of life therapeutic paradigm, and immunosuppressive agents of AD were considerably immature offering prospective scope for further research.

CONCLUSIONS

The results may potentially aid in describing an all-round grasp of the current research areas and furnish guidelines for the researchers for beginning new projects.