Research trends and prospects of ABO-incompatible organ transplantation: a bibliometric analysis

Objective To systematically analyze the literature on ABO-incompatible (ABOi) organ transplantation and explore the research hotspots and trends in this field.

Methods CiteSpace software was used for visual analysis of ABOi organ transplantation literature collected from the China National Knowledge Infrastructure, VIP web, Wanfang Data, and the Web of Science Core Collection database from January 1, 2013 to December 31, 2023 after cleaning, including the volume of literature published, authors, countries, institution and keywords.

Results A total of 588 valid foreign-language author publications and 85 valid Chinese-language author publications were included. Since 2021, the volume of foreign literature publications has shown a downward trend, while the volume of domestic literature published has generally shown a upward trend. The top two core Chinese authors are Wang Yi and Zhu Zhijun; the top three core authors in foreign literature are Nakatani Tatsuya, Tanabe Kazunari, and Uchida Junji. The most active institution in China is Huazhong University of Science and Technology, followed by Zhejiang University and Sichuan University, with relatively insufficient closeness in cooperation between related institutions. The institutions with the most publications abroad are Ulsan University, Seoul National University and Tokyo Women's Medical University in Japan. The top three countries in English-language literature publications are Japan, Republic Korea, and the United States, and China ranked 5th. Keyword cluster analysis shows that the research focus of at home and abroad is mainly on nine topic clusters including ABOi organ transplantation, cryoprecipitation, kidney transplantation, liver transplantation, blood type antigen detection technology and post-transplant complications.

Conclusions At present, The research in the field of ABOi organ transplantation is mainly concentrated on kidney transplantation and liver transplantation, showing an overall positive development trend. In the future, it is expected to further promote development of this field by strengthening international cooperation, expanding research investment and promoting the application of advanced technologies.