Revival of Spectinomycin from Neglect to Relevance: Bibliometric Analysis of the Three Decades of Renewed Clinical and Veterinary Interest

Spectinomycin has been used as an antibiotic against Gram-negative infections in both human and veterinary medicine.However, spectinomycin has been scarcely covered in the bibliometric studies.Therefore, we aimed to provide a bibliometric overview of spectinomycin research in terms of main contributors such as authors, countries, and institutions, as well as analysis of emerging topics, thematic evolution and keyword networks and clusters.The Scopus database was used to identify the relevant original records during the period from 1995 to 2025.The VOSviewer program and Bibliometrix R package were used to conduct the bibliometric analysis.Our bibliometric analysis identified 148 published papers in 107 sources, contributed by 623 authors with an average of 4.68 co-authors per paper and 20.95% international collaboration, while it peaked in 2000 and 2022.The top cited articles focused on antimicrobial resistance, resistance mechanisms, molecular or analytical applications of spectinomycin.Neisseria gonorrhoeae appeared in the motor themes implying spectinomycin's sustained clinical relevance.Owing to its strong effect on some micro-organisms, spectinomycin has come back from the "forgotten" list and surfaced again as a strong replacement for more recent antibiotics facing drug resistance problem in human clinical applications including veterinary practice.Recent tools in drug delivery and discovery of new derivatives are required to continue the clinical merit of this important antibiotic.