Basal Cell Carcinoma Research Landscape Overview via Latent Dirichlet Allocation and HJ-Biplot Analysis

Background: Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) of the skin is the most common cancer in humans, and its incidence rises annually. Despite its low death rate, BCC causes significant morbidity because of its destructive nature to local tissues. The aim of this study was to review the state of the BCC research landscape using data published in Scopus from 1972 to 2023. Methods: Using the R package Bibliometrix, we first determined authors, countries, journals, and main topics behind the advancement of BCC research. The Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), a probabilistic topic algorithm, was applied to automatically discover latent (hidden) thematic structures. Additionally, the HJ-Biplot was also chosen to visualize graphical representations of multivariate scientometric and bibliometric data to improve the LDA outcome. Results: Over five decades, we discovered 32 unique themes. BCC research has shifted from studying tumor and immunohistochemically characterization, epidemiology, and surgical/histological clearance to the advancement of diagnostic and imaging techniques, like dermoscopy and reflectance confocal microscopy (RCM). Another exciting BCC research trend has been the discovery of aberrant activation within the Hedgehog signaling. Finally, patient treatment, especially surgery, radiotherapy, topical fluorouracil, and imiquimod, is an object of intense research. Conclusions: By displaying each topic as a group of related words, this in-depth exploration outlined emerging avenues in BCC evidence-based research that will benefit from the development of cutting-edge diagnostic procedures, as well as a deeper knowledge of BCC etiology and genetic underpinnings, the quality of life in BCC patients after surgery, and the application of artificial intelligence.