Cluster analysis and network visualization of research in mucormycosis: a scientometric mapping of the global publications from 2011 to 2020

Abstract

PurposeMucormycosis has evolved as a post-COVID-19 complication globally, especially in India. The research on fungus has been very primitive, and many scientific publications have been discovered. The current COVID-19 pandemic needs further investigation into this unusual fungal infection. This review study aims to provide a pen-picture to researchers, science policymakers and scientists about different bibliometric indicators related to the research literature on mucormycosis.Design/methodology/approachThe quantitative research was conducted using the established procedure of bibliometric investigation on data collected from Scopus from 2011 to 2020 using a validated search query. The search query consisted of keywords “Mucormycosis” or “Mucormycoses” or “Mucormycose” or “Mucorales Infection” or “Mucorales Infections” or “Black Fungus Infection” or “Black Fungus Infections” or “Zygomycosis” in the “Title-Keyword-Abstract” search option for data extraction. The analysis of data is performed using MS-Excel. Mapping was done with state-of-the-art visualization tools Biblioshiny and VOSviewer, using bibliometric indicators as units of analysis.FindingsThe analysis reveals that the first publication on this topic was reported from 1923 onwards. In total, 9,423 authors contributed 1,896 papers with 11,437 collaborated authors, documents per author are 0.201, authors per document are 4.97 and co-authors per document are 6.03. Total records were published in 779 journals in the English language from 75 countries globally. Mucormycosis literature is mostly open access, with 1,210 publications available via different open access routes. The highest number of articles (204) published in the journal “Mycoses” with 1,333 authors received 4,875 cited references, and the h-index has 24. The growth of publications is exponential, as depicted by the Price Law. The USA has recorded a maximum number of publications at both country and institutional levels compared to the other nations. There has been extensive research on mucormycosis before the outbreak as a post-COVID complication, as indicated by the highest number of publications in 2019.Practical implicationsThe research hot spots have altered from “Mucormycosis,” “fungi,” “Zygomycosis” and “Drug efficacy”, “Drug Safety” to “Microbiology,” “Pathology,” “nucleotide sequence,” “surgical debridement” which indicates that potential area of research in the near future will be concerned with more extensive research in mucormycosis to develop standard treatment procedures to fight this infection. The quantity of scientific publications has also increased over time. The research and health community are called upon to join forces to activate existing knowledge, generate new insights and develop decision-supporting tools for health authorities in different nations to leverage vaccination in its transformational role toward successfully attaining nil cases of COVID-19.Originality/valueThe analysis of collaboration, findings, the research networks and visualization makes this study novel and separates from traditional metrics analysis. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this work is original, and no similar studies have been found with the objectives included here.