Current Status, Hot Spot Discovery and Integration Prospect of Cancer-related Fatigue Research at Home and Abroad Based on Bibliometric Visualization Map Analysis

Objective  To review the research progress, present the research status and analyze the evolution trend of hot spots through the bibliometric analysis of the research literature of cancer-related fatigue(CRF) at home and abroad.

Methods  We took CRF as the theme and the papers on CRF included in CNKI and WOS core database as the research object, and used VOSviewer and CiteSpace software as research tools, to make a visual atlas analysis on the research status and hot spot evolution at home and abroad.

Results  (1)Research status: ① Literature: 3 646 papers (1 959 in English and 1 687 in Chinese) were finally included. The number of papers published at home and abroad showed an overall upward trend, and the proportion of foreign fund papers was high; ② domestic papers focused on nursing and rehabilitation. The research area of foreign papers was more extensive, diverse and integrated; ③ Domestic cooperation was mainly small group cooperation, while foreign cooperation was more interdisciplinary and cross-team cooperation, forming a number of core teams and research institutions; ④ Domestic scholars paid attention to clinical application research and were good at learning from foreign countries and summarizing own experience. Foreign scholars paid more attention to basic research and the treatment was more systematic and standardized; ⑤ There were a variety of diagnostic and therapeutic evaluation tools, mainly foreign scales. (2) Hot spot evolution: "quality of life" had always been a common topic of concern at home and abroad. Domestic scholars focused on clinical research and emphasized "treatment based on examination of causes" and "treatment based on syndrome differentiation". Foreign scholars attached importance to basic research and methodological research, and advocated non-drug intervention such as sports. In recent years, complementary and alternative medicine had become a hot topic in the international research. Domestic scholars had paid more attention to the research of mechanism and methodology, and expanded the application of TCM characteristic therapy in CRF.

Conclusion  Integrated traditional Chinese and Western medicine and multi-disciplinary participation are the future diagnosis and treatment mode of CRF. It's the direction of future efforts to establish CRF evaluation and management mode with TCM characteristic non-drug therapy as the core under integrated medicine.