Mapping the global landscape of research on immune checkpoint inhibitor–associated cardiotoxicity: A quantitative and visualized bibliometric study (2016–2025)

Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have transformed oncologic practice, but their expanding use has heightened concern about potentially fatal cardiovascular toxicity. This bibliometric study mapped the global research landscape and temporal evolution of ICI-associated cardiotoxicity from 2016 to 2025. Records were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection on January 1, 2026. After excluding letters, conference abstracts, editorials, and other non-research items, 1,127 original articles and reviews were analyzed. A thesaurus file standardized synonyms, abbreviations, spelling variants, and singular–plural forms before keyword co-occurrence analysis. VOSviewer and CiteSpace were used to evaluate publication trends, collaboration networks, citation structures, keyword clusters, temporal patterns, and burst terms. The corpus involved 67 countries, 2,430 institutions, and 8,842 authors. Annual output increased from 9 publications in 2016 to 236 in 2025, representing a 26.2-fold rise and a compound annual growth rate of 43.8%; cumulative publication output was well fitted by a quadratic polynomial model (R2 = 0.9973). China produced the most publications, whereas the United States achieved the highest citation count. The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Javid Moslehi, and Frontiers in Oncology were the leading institution, author, and journal, respectively; The New England Journal of Medicine was the most frequently co-cited journal. Keyword mapping delineated three domains: immune-mediated cardiovascular phenotypes, PD-1/PD-L1-related mechanisms, and multidisciplinary risk management. Temporal and burst analyses indicated a shift from toxicity recognition toward mechanistic elucidation, diagnostic standardization, risk stratification, and cardiovascular outcome assessment. Emerging low-frequency but rapidly strengthening terms highlight growing attention to combination-regimen safety, patient-level risk assessment, evidence synthesis, and long-term cardiovascular outcomes.