The oral microbiome contains numerous bacteria, which directly or indirectly participate in various human functions and continuously exchange signals and substances with the human body, significantly affecting human life cycle, health, and disease. To comprehensively understand the current status, Prof. Zhou et al. adopted bibliometric analysis to qualitatively and quantitatively evaluate global oral microbiome-related literature. They aimed to estimate the global scientific outputs of oral microbiome research to identify hotspots and trends, as well as the most active and productive investigators whose publications have imposed impact in this field and may influence the future direction of oral microbiome research.

This study conducted bibliometric studies on the scientific outputs of global oral microbiome research by Citespace software. The data were obtained from the Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC), from the first relevant literature published until December 31st, 2019, and a total of 2225 articles and reviews were identified. The top country and institutions are the United States and Harvard University. Keywords analysis showed that periodontal disease, oral microbes, and dental plaque are research hotspots. The burst word analysis indicates that early childhood caries, squamous cell carcinoma, gut microbiome, Helicobacter pylori, Candida albicans, and dysbiosis are likely to become the research hotspots of the next era (Fig. 1). The authors also recommend the use of knowledge mapping methods to track specific knowledge areas efficiently and objectively regularly, which can accurately identify hotspots and frontiers and provide valuable information for practitioners in the field, including related scientists, students, journals, and editors.

Fig. 1 The scientific outputs of the global oral microbiome research

Article Access: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/mco2.47

Website for MedComm: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/26882663

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