As of 2014, cancer research represented 4% of all global research, according to Elsevier’s Scopus database. According to Elsevier’s “Cancer Research: Current Trends and Future Directions” report, cancer research is defined as “research where the published results include ‘cancer’ or ‘oncology’ within the title, abstract, or list of keywords of publications [and] includes all publication types, namely articles, reviews, conference papers, book chapters, notes, letters, short surveys, editorials, articles in press, erratum, book conference reviews, business articles and abstract reports.” Of the 4% figure, articles on cancer comprised 77% and reviews represented 14% of publications. Cancer research publications were found to be more commonly cited in patents than general medicine publications.

The US had the greatest output for cancer research, releasing 34,674 publications in 2014, a 6.6% increase. China followed with a 25% increase to 20,505 publications, while Japan’s output increased 6.2% to 8,001 publications.

Although the US is the leader in publishing cancer research, due to the rapidly increased output of cancer research publications from countries such as China, the US’s share in global cancer research and medical research has declined to a CAGR of 6% and 9%, respectively. China’s CAGR for cancer research and medical research in 2014 was 23% and 19%, respectively. Canada’s cancer research and medical research had a CAGR of 9% and 11%, respectively, while Italy’s cancer research and medical research CAGR was 8% and 9%, respectively.

Trends in cancer research since 2011 include a greater focus on early cancer detection, neoplastic stem cells, microRNAs and biomarkers. The US in particular has concentrated on immunotherapy, xenograft models and studying tumor environments. Institutionally, Harvard leads in cancer research publications in terms of greatest output volume, with 13,0209 publications in 2014, while the Dana-Farber Institute holds the highest field-weighted citation impact.

Source: Elsevier