Circulating tumor DNA in lung cancer: a bibliometric analysis of studies published from 2001 to 2024.

Background: Lung cancer is the most prevalent cancer worldwide, yet challenges persist in early diagnosis, prediction of therapeutic effect, treatment monitoring, and prognosis. Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) has garnered heightened research attention as a noninvasive biomarker of lung cancer. However, the literature on ctDNA in lung cancer has not been extensively characterized. Therefore, a bibliometric analysis of studies on ctDNA and lung cancer was conducted to address this deficiency. Methods: Publications on ctDNA and lung cancer published from 2001 to 2024 were collected from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC). CiteSpace, VOSviewer, and Bibliometrix software were used to visualize the status and future trends of the research in this field. Results: A total of 978 publications from 6,656 authors and 58 countries/regions were retrieved. The analysis indicated a steadily rising trend in publication volume from 2015 onward. China had the highest number of publications, and the United States had the highest centrality; meanwhile, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center had the highest centrality among organizations. Centrality/productivity and collaborations among countries/regions, institutions, journals, and authors were visualized. Residual disease, adjuvant chemotherapy, outcome prediction, immunotherapy, programmed cell death ligand-1 (PD-L1) expression, pembrolizumab, efficacy, recurrence, and risk are the current research frontiers in this field. Conclusions: Results from the bibliometric analysis provide a global perspective and intuitive understanding of this field, emphasizing the application value of ctDNA in lung cancer diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment.