Global trends of delayed graft function in kidney transplantation from 2013 to 2023: a bibliometric analysis

Abstract

Delayed graft function (DGF) is an early complication after kidney transplantation. The literature on DGF has experienced substantial growth. However, there is a lack of bibliometric analysis of DGF. This study aimed to analyze the scientific outputs of DGF and explore its hotspots from 2013 to 2023 by using CiteSpace and VOSviewer. The 2058 pieces of literature collected in the Web of Science Core Collection (WOSCC) from 1 January 2013 to 31 December 2023 were visually analyzed in terms of the annual number of publications, authors, countries, journals, literature co-citations, and keyword clustering by using CiteSpace and VOSviewer. We found that the number of papers published in the past ten years showed a trend of first increasing and then decreasing; 2021 was the year with the most posts. The largest number of papers was published by the University of California System, and the largest number of papers was published by the United States. The top five keyword frequency rankings are: ‘delayed graft function’, ‘kidney transplantation’, ‘renal transplantation’, ‘survival’, and ‘recipients’. These emerging trends include ‘brain death donors’, ‘blood absence re-injection injuries’, ‘tacrolimus’, ‘older donors and recipients’, and ‘artificial intelligence and DGF’. In summary, this study reveals the authors and institutions that could be cooperated with and discusses the research hotspots in the past ten years. It provides a reference and direction for future research and application of DGF.

Keywords:

• Kidney transplantation
• delayed graft function
• research hotspot
• bibliometric analysis

Acknowledgments

I want to express my sincere gratitude to all of my friends and esteemed teachers who have shown me kind support. Above all, I am especially indebted to my esteemed thesis advisor, Professor Zhen Li, for her kind counsel, perceptive recommendations, and unwavering support during the whole writing process. Without his motivational guidance and insightful recommendations, I would be struggling to finish this thesis on my own. Furthermore, I would like to thank Mingqian Kuang for helping me to finish the data gathering and preliminary data analysis. Each author reviewed and approved the submitted version of the work in addition to contributing to its revision. In addition, we thank the Yunnan Province Technical Innovation Talent Training Target Project #1 (grant numbers: 202305AD160007) and the Yunnan Provincial Department of Science and Technology Kunming Medical University Applied Basic Research Joint Special Fund Project #2 (grant numbers: 202201AY070001-080) for their support of this work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Yunnan Provincial Department of Science and Technology Kunming Medical University Applied Basic Research Joint Special Fund Project #1 (grant numbers: 202201AY070001-080); Cultivating Plan Program for the Leader in Science and Technology of Yunnan Province #2 (grant numbers: 202305AD160007).