The bibliometric analysis of documents concerning the relationship between the microbiota and urological malignancies.

Abstract

Introduction. The microbiota, which has a major impact on both health and illness, has recently become one of the most popular research topics.Hypothesis/Gap statement. To the best of our knowledge, no research has undertaken a bibliometric analysis of publications examining the connection between microbiome and urological cancer to date. In this respect, it is thought that our study will contribute to the literature.Aim. The purpose of this study is to raise awareness of the topic by performing a bibliometric analysis of the publications examining the connection between the microbiota and the most common urological cancers, including bladder, prostate, and kidney cancers.Methodology. All publications about prostate, renal and bladder cancers and microbiota indexed in Web of Science between 2000 and 2024 were included in the study.Results. A total of 310 publications were obtained. Before 2018, there were only three or fewer publications annually; however, following 2018, the number of publications increased rapidly, reaching a peak of 77 in 2024. The USA led with 98 (31.61%) documents, followed by China (60, 19.35%) and Italy (31, 10%). With 19 publications, Hirotsugu Uemura is the most contributing author, followed by Norio Nonomura with 17. Prostate cancer accounted for 45.48% of the publications, bladder cancer for 36.77% and kidney malignancies for 17.64%.Conclusion. Despite the fact that microbiota has been known for 80 years, research on the connection between microbiota and cancer accelerated after the completion of the Human Microbiome Project. The number of studies examining the connection between urological cancer and microbiota peaked in 2024 and is probably going to rise. More research is required on this topic, since the correlation between microbiota and especially prostate and bladder malignancies raises the possibility that variations in microbiota may be utilized in diagnosis, treatment and prognosis.