A visualization analysis of hotspots and global trends on pelvic floor dysfunction in cervical cancer.

Background/objective: Cervical cancer is the major cause of cancer-related mortalities in women globally. It constitutes one of the life-threatening conditions for women in developing countries. The popularization of cervical cancer screening and the improvement of treatment levels has caused the mortality rate of cervical cancer to decrease gradually, but pelvic floor dysfunction before and after cervical cancer treatment has become prominent and attracted more and more attention. Bibliometric analysis has been carried out in this research. The main goal of this research is to provide a comprehensive insight into the knowledge structure and global research hotspots about pelvic floor dysfunction in cervical cancer.

Methods: Literature related to cervical cancer and pelvic floor dysfunction as of May 2023 was searched on the Web of Science Core Collection (WOSCC). The visualization and bibliometric analyses of the number and contents of publications were performed to analyze the temporal trends, spatial distribution, collaborative networks, influential references, keyword co-occurrence, and clustering.

Results: There were 870 publications from 74 countries or regions, with the U.S. publications in a leading position. Since 2020, the number of publications has rapidly increased with the emphasis on the quality of life of cervical cancer patients. Although pelvic floor dysfunction in cervical cancer mainly occurs in developing countries, developed countries have made great contributions to this disease. However, in developing countries such as China and India, the quality of publications needs to be improved. In this field, the studies focused on the sexual dysfunction or urinary incontinence of cervical cancer patients, and the most cited papers discussed the effect of cervical cancer treatment on the sexual activities of females. The frontier keywords were represented by pelvic radiotherapy and risk factors.

Conclusion: This study provides an objective and comprehensive analysis of the literature available on pelvic floor dysfunction in cervical cancer and identifies future trends and current hotspots. It can provide a valuable reference for researchers in this field.