Research status and hotspot of oral submucous fibrosis based on bibliometrics

Objective To analyze the research status and hotspots of oral submucous fibrosis (OSF) by using bibliometrics.

Methods Relevant literatures on OSF were searched in the core collection of Web of Science (WOS) from the establishment of the database to December 31, 2022. CiteSpace and VOSviewer were comprehensively used to draw knowledge graphs about authors, distribution of countries and journal co-citations, and the visual analysis was performed.

Results A total of 1 530 literatures were included, and a stable growth trend was found in the annual publication volume of literatures; the hotspots of OSF-related researches included oral cancer, oral leukoplakia, areca nut, arecoline, tobacco and submucosal fibrosis.

Conclusion Visual analysis of literatures intuitively presents the hotspots, frontiers, core journals and core authors of OSF-related researches, which provides reference for the learning and study of relevant scholars.