The development of cancer nutrition research from 2013 to 2022: a bibliometric and visualized analysis study

Background: The use of nutrition in cancer treatment has become increasingly widespread in recent decades, and the current stage of nutritional support and assessment has had a positive effect on reducing the side effects of cancer treatment. Based on the analysis of international literature on “tumor nutrition,” we identified the current status of research, research hotspots, and frontiers and provided a theoretical basis and reference for the development of related research in China. This study aimed to conduct a bibliometric analysis of the global literature published from 2013 to 2022 to assess the current research directions. Methods: The Web of Science core collection was searched from 2013 to 2022. The VOSviewer 1.6.19 and CiteSpace 6.2.2 were adopted to conduct the analysis. Results: Following the inclusion and exclusion criteria, a total of 28,245 documents were collected. The number of articles issued annually was fluctuatingly increasing. These articles were written by 124,412 authors from 20,162 affiliations in 166 countries or regions and were published in 3110 journals. The leading authors were Susan M. Gapstur, Heiner Boeing, and Hanping Shi. All publications were taken from 166 countries/regions and 20,162 organizations. The most productive countries were the United States and China. The most active institutions were the Harvard Medical School and University of Alberta. A total of 3110 journals contributed to this field, and the leading journals were Nutrients and Clinical Nutrition. The important author keywords occurred most frequently were cancer, nutrition, risk, survival, mortality, and sarcopenia. Conclusions: This study provided the dynamics and progress of nutrition research field. The studies about nutrition are booming. The current growth trend predicts that the global field of oncology nutrition will still increase. In addition to the traditional research on tumor nutrition, the development of interdisciplinary research should be promoted. Every country should strengthen international cooperation to enhance the influence of research results and solve many common scientific problems in the field of tumor nutrition research in multiple dimensions.