Worldwide research tendency and collaborations on models of necrotizing enterocolitis: bibliometric exploration over the past three decades.

BACKGROUND

Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) is a devastating disease affecting the gastrointestinal tract in premature infants with high mortality and morbidity. We aimed to analyze the research tendency and collaborations on models of NEC over the past three decades.

METHODS

Bibliometric variables of included articles were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection from 1994 to 2023. Visualized studies were performed via VOSviewer software. Statistical analysis was applied by using GraphPad Prism and Microsoft Excel.

RESULT

A total of 255 original articles from 17 countries were included in this study. The number of articles increased significantly from 22 (the year 1994-2003) to 161 (the year 2014-2023) ( < 0.0001). Collaborations in regions and countries have increased significantly over time ( < 0.0001). Developed regions contributed most of the research. While rat (56.08%) held the leading position in all types of models, followed by mouse (30.20%), notably, the proportion of mouse model has increased significantly from 4.55% to 41.36%.

CONCLUSION

This study might provide valuable insights into the model research of NEC. Research tendency has evolved to be collaborative and inclusive with more collaborations, broad model types, and studies from developing regions. However, the lack of an evident and robust pathophysiology mechanism will continue to make NEC a quite challenging case to decode, and research with strong evidence level and high quality is still required.