The evolution of celiac disease publications: a holistic approach with bibliometric analysis

Abstract

BackgroundDespite the increasing number of publications on celiac disease, there is a lack of studies that made a holistic bibliometric evaluation of the studies on this topic.AimsThe purpose of this study is to analyze the publications about celiac disease by using bibliometric methods and this way to demonstrate the celiac disease-related trends, top effective articles, journals, and international collaborations between the countries and institutions.MethodsAll articles published between 1980 and 2018 on celiac disease were downloaded from Web of Science and analyzed with bibliometric methods. The correlations between economic development and publication productivity of the countries were investigated with Spearman's rank correlation coefficient. Linear regression analysis was used to estimate the number of publications and citations.ResultsThe literature review showed that there were 6545 articles about celiac disease published between the years 1980 and 2018. The top productive country that produced most publications about celiac disease was the Italy. The most prolific journals were the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition and Scandinavian Journal of Gastroenterology. There was a moderate positive significant correlation between the number of publications and gross domestic product (r=0.639, p<0.001).ConclusionsDespite the advanced research on the diagnosis, pathophysiology, and treatment of celiac disease, the global research level about the disease is low. Therefore, the international collaboration about the disease should not remain at only regional contexts; the exchange of knowledge and common studies especially in developing or underdeveloped countries should be supported in terms of prevalence and clinic studies.