Trends and Development in the Antibiotic-Resistance of Acinetobacter baumannii: A Scientometric Research Study (1991–2019)

Abstract

Objective

Data visualization software were used to display and analyze the research status, hotspot and development trend of the antibiotic-resistance of Acinetobacter baumannii objectively and comprehensively, so as to provide guidance and reference for the research of the antibiotic-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii.

Materials and Methods

The data of relevant publications on antibiotic-resistant Acinetobacter baumanii from 1991 to 2019 were retrieved from Web of Science (WOS) Core database. VOSviewer and CiteSpace software were used to conduct co-citation visualization network rendering and cluster analysis on the publications’ years, authors, countries, institutions, keywords and citations.

Results

A total of 3915 valid records on the study of antibiotic-resistant Acinetobacter baumanii were retrieved. The number of relevant publications was increasing year after year. The United States is the most influential country in the field, which works closely with other countries and publishes most of the papers. University of Sydney is the leading institution in this area. Bonomo Robert A publishes most of the papers. There are the highest number of publications in the research areas of antimicrobial agents and chemotherapy. “Nucleotide sequence” and “outbreak” were once the hotspots in this field, but recently “bacteriophage”, “biofilm” and “colistin resistance” have become the research hotspots.

Conclusion

Since 1991, the number of publications on antibiotic-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii has grown rapidly, and various countries and institutions have paid close attention to the problem of antibiotic resistance. Countries, institutions and researchers, which have strong influential power, collaborate with each other closely. The future research direction of antibiotic-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii should lie in the further breakthrough of antibacterial peptides, bacteriophage therapy, CRISPR system and various combined therapies.

Keywords:

• Acinetobacter baumannii
• antibiotic resistance
• CiteSpace
• visualized analysis
• scientometric

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to express their appreciation to Professor CM Chen, who invented CiteSpace, which is free to use.

Disclosure

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NO.31870135), Opening Project of Zhejiang Provincial Preponderant and Characteristic Subject of Key University (Traditional Chinese Pharmacology), Zhejiang Chinese Medical University (No.ZYX2018035), and Project of Health and Family Planning Commission of Zhejiang province (2018KY831). The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.