A bibliometric analysis on KRAS, a targeted marker for blockbuster clinical drugs

This study aims to provide an overview of research hotspots and trends in KRAS, a key star gene which has been paid special attention to in the field of cancer. Publications on KRAS were searched in the Web of Science Core Collection database. VOSviewer 1.6.16 and R package "bibliometrix" were used for bibliometric analyses. A total of 23,758 publications were identified, including 19,325 original articles and 2913 reviews. A sharp increase of the publications number was found since the year 2016 by time trend analysis. The top 3 countries/regions with the highest number of publications were the United States, China and Europe. Most active organizations were from Europe and the USA. Keywords co-occurrence analysis showed four clusters of KRAS, including the role and molecular mechanism of KRAS in the process of cancer development, especially pancreatic cancer, studies on the characteristics and clinical value of KRAS in colorectal cancer, the role characteristics of KRAS in the occurrence of lung cancer and its clinical applications and research progress of clinical trials targeted KRAS. This study systematically elucidates emerging insights into the critical gene KRAS, providing a contemporary perspective on KRAS-driven oncogenesis.