Analysis of cytokine and COVID-19 associated cytokine storm researches in scientific literature: A bibliometric study

Objective: In this article, we aimed to perform bibliometric analysis of articles on cytokine and cytokine storm published in the academic literature during 1980 to 2018-2020.

Methods: The bibliometric analysis was performed using the Thomson Reuters Web of Science database.

Results: A total of 232,606 articles were retrieved, 82.52% of which were original articles. The United States of America (USA) was the leading country by total publication number (n=84,426, 36.29%), followed by Japan (n=21,983, 9.45%) produced the most literature on cytokine. Among the institutions identified, Harvard University (USA) contributed the most articles on cytokine. All authors and institutions in the top 10 contributor’s lists were from the developed countries.

Conclusion: Researchers from the developing and underdeveloped countries should be encouraged to perform novel studies on cytokine. Cytokine studies are associated with the pathology and physiological variability of many diseases and may have beneficial results in the medical field. Cytokine and cytokine storm studies may be useful particularly in identifying the pathogenesis of global viral infections such as SARS-CoV-2, evaluating and developing new treatment strategies.