Bibliometric analysis of PubMed-based literature on research focus of Takotsubo cardiomyopathy

AIM:To examine “hot” topics on Takotsubo cardiomyopathy (TTC) research by analyzing the related literature. METHODS: Articles related to TTC published in the PubMed database during the years 2009 to 2011 were selected. Subject heading (MeSH) terms of the articles were downloaded and the frequency of the major MeSH terms was statistically calculated. High-frequency MeSH terms in the literature formed the co-word matrix by the appearance frequency of a pair of MeSH terms in the same literature. The co-word analysis was used to cluster these medical MeSHs. The research focus was obtained after statistically analyzing the contents of each cluster. RESULTS: A total of 646 articles associated with TTC were found in the PubMed database and 34 MeSH terms appeared more than six times. The MeSH term “Takotsubo cardiomyopathy/diagnosis” was found with the highest occurrence frequency (228 times). The 34 over-6-time terms were clustered into ten groups according to their co-occurrence. CONCLUSION: The ten "hot" topics for the past 3 years, respectively, are relationship between incidence of adrenal tumors with TTC; drug-induced TTC; TTC and genetic disease; TTC chest pain and coronary pathology; MRI diagnosis and drug treatment of TTC; complications of TTC; TTC and long QT syndrome and myocardial infarction with differential diagnosis; ultrasound and radionuclide imaging appraisal of cardiac function of TTC; diagnosis and treatment of radiation in TCC; and complications of subarachnoid hemorrhage and TCC.