A Comparative Bibliometric Analysis of Natural Product-Based Combination Therapies in Lung Cancer: Insights into Analytical Strategies and Translational Challenges

Background Natural products have attracted increasing attention in lung cancer because of their direct antitumor activity and their potential roles as sensitizers or synergistic agents in combination therapy. However, whether different combination-therapy settings differ in research hotspots, intellectual bases, and knowledge structures remains unclear. This study aimed to comparatively characterize the research hotspots, locally cited reference bases, knowledge structures, and emerging trends of WoSCC-indexed literature on natural product-based combination therapies in lung cancer across chemo/radiotherapy, targeted therapy, and immunotherapy settings. Methods Publications were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) on February 4, 2026. English-language articles and reviews published between January 1, 2006, and December 31, 2025, were included. A total of 4,379 publications formed the combination-therapy dataset, from which three scenario-specific subsets were defined, namely chemo/radiotherapy (n = 1,506), targeted therapy (n = 614), and immunotherapy (n = 270). CiteSpace and Bibliometrix 5.0 were used for comparative bibliometric analyses. Results Publication output increased steadily from 2006 to 2025 and accelerated after 2020. The chemo/radiotherapy subset remained the largest, whereas the targeted therapy and immunotherapy subsets showed faster recent growth. China had the highest publication output and a prominent role in collaboration networks. The main publication venues were Journal of Ethnopharmacology , Frontiers in Pharmacology , Molecules , and Phytomedicine . The four datasets shared a common locally cited reference base centered on global cancer statistics and tumor biology, while descriptive setting-specific differences were observed. Metadata-based keyword patterns suggested a shift in research attention from apoptosis, in vitro, and expression toward network pharmacology, molecular docking, tumor microenvironment, and immunotherapy. Conclusions The WoSCC-indexed literature on natural product-based combination therapies in lung cancer has expanded rapidly, with distinct bibliometric patterns observed across the three combination-therapy settings. From a bibliometric perspective, these findings provide a useful framework for understanding research evolution and informing future mechanistic and translational studies. These findings should be interpreted in light of the exclusive use of WoSCC and the inherent limitations of metadata-based bibliometric analyses.