Global trends of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells in tissue engineering: A bibliometric analysis

Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) tissue engineering has been an emerging field of research in recent years. Given the increasing global interest, we utilized a bibliometric analysis and visualization of studies on BMSCs in the field of tissue engineering published from 2004 to 2023 to explore research progress and identify future research directions. Data was collected from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC), and in-depth analysis was conducted using various bibliometric tools, including CiteSpace, VOSviewer, and R-Bibliometrix. Our study revealed the historical development and evolution of active topics in BMSCs in terms of temporal dynamics, covering 2967 publications, 65 countries, 2454 academic institutions, and 605 journals, with significant growth observed over the last 20 years. China and the United States dominate the global research landscape. Shanghai Jiao Tong University is one of the most significant contributors to the field. In terms of co-citation analysis, Biomaterials was identified as a key journal. Our analysis also revealed current trends such as extracellular vesicles, exosomes, 3D printing, hydrogels, and nanomaterials. These findings provide a clear perspective for future research on the tissue engineering of BMSCs. This study fills a gap in the field of bibliometrics, enabling researchers to identify popular research areas and providing a comprehensive perspective and broad outlook on this emerging field of research.