Frontier and hotspot evolution in pulmonary embolism: A bibliometric analysis from 2004 to 2023

Pulmonary embolism (PE) is the third most common cause of cardiovascular death worldwide after stroke and heart attack. Research priorities in each PE period over the past 2 decades remain largely unassessed. This study aims to summarize PE research hotspots and trends using a bibliometric approach and predict future research hotspots. Relevant publications between 2004 and 2023 were extracted from the Web of Science Core Collection. Microsoft Excel 2016 and the R Bibliometrix package were used for descriptive and bibliometric data analyses. Country collaboration was visualized using VOSviewer. CiteSpace was used for the keyword burst analysis and timeline view construction. In total, 25,487 PE-related articles were included in the analysis. The annual number of publications followed a general upward trend. The USA was the most prolific country, with 9568 publications. The timeline of reference indicated 9 clusters including "#1 submassive PE," "#2 suspected PE," "#3 venous thromboembolism," "#4 direct oral anticoagulants," "#5 acute PE," "#6 cancer-associated thrombosis," "#7 medical patient," "#8 PE," and "#9 knee arthroplasty." The keyword "helical computed tomography" had the highest burst strength, followed by "unfractionated heparin," "society" and "molecular weight heparin." The keywords "direct oral anticoagulants," "venous thromboembolism," "american society," "society," "coronavirus disease 2019," "infection," "case report," "pneumonia" and "clinical characteristics" appeared frequently in recent years. Research on PE has focused on risk factor exploration, PE prevention and diagnosis, and then shifted to the treatment strategies, guideline updates, and specific types of PE. The use and feedback of guidelines, better improvement of prognosis, and life quality for PE-specific types might be potential future hotspots.