Abstract
This study charts the evolution of the scientific literature on Parkinson's disease (PD) from 1983 to 2017 to inform communities of scientists, physicians, patients, caregivers and politicians concerned with PD. Articles published in journals indexed in the Science Citation Index-Expanded database of the Web of Science were retrieved and analyzed in seven five-year periods: 1983–1987, 1988–1992, 1993–1997, 1998–2002, 2003–2007, 2008–2012 and 2013–2017. Over 35 years the number of research papers on PD increased 33-fold: 885 papers in 1983–1987 to 29,972 in 2013–2017. At the same time the number of countries contributing to PD research increased from 37 to 131. The USA was the most prolific country throughout, followed by several European (UK, Germany, Italy and France) and English-speaking (Canada and Australia) countries. By 2003, several Asian countries (China, South Korea, India and Turkey) emerged with rapid increases in publications related to PD. By 2013–2017, China surpassed all but the USA to rank 2nd globally in productivity. Despite an increase from 4 to 22 African countries publishing PD research from 1983 to 2017, most were either unproductive or contributed ≤5 papers in each five-year period. There has also been a 12-fold increase in the number of journals (232–2824) containing papers on PD. In 2013–2017 three PD-focused journals (Parkinsonism & Related Disorders, Movement Disorders and Journal of Parkinson's Disease) contained 6.8% of all PD papers while a large majority (82.5%) of journals published ≤ 10 papers. This quantitative study complements the numerous extant qualitative reviews to provide a global perspective on PD research.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 10-18 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Parkinsonism and Related Disorders |
| Volume | 61 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Apr 2019 |
Keywords
- Bibliometrics
- Country productivity
- Journal analysis
- Parkinson's disease
- Publication growth
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Neurology
- Geriatrics and Gerontology
- Clinical Neurology
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Parkinson's disease : Evolution of the scientific literature from 1983 to 2017 by countries and journals. / Robert, C.; Wilson, C. S.; Lipton, R. B.; Arreto, C. D.
In: Parkinsonism and Related Disorders, Vol. 61, 04.2019, p. 10-18.Research output: Contribution to journal › Review article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Parkinson's disease
T2 - Evolution of the scientific literature from 1983 to 2017 by countries and journals
AU - Robert, C.
AU - Wilson, C. S.
AU - Lipton, R. B.
AU - Arreto, C. D.
N1 - Funding Information: USA. During the 30 + year period, the USA continuously led in the production of papers in PD research: from about 31% to 39% of the publications in each of the five -year periods. In 1997 US President Clinton signed the Morris K. Udall Parkinson's Disease Research Act into law and shortly thereafter the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) established the first Morris K. Udall Center of Excellence in Parkinson's Disease Research. The overarching goal is to establish a network of Centers that work collaboratively as well as independently to define the causes of and discover improved treatments for PD. In 2017, there were eight Udall Centers across the United States. During the last decade, the financial contribution of the NIH to Parkinson's disease research had increased about 11% from $152 million in 2008 to $169 million in 2017 ( https://report.nih.gov/categorical_spending.aspx ). Approximately 77% of the financial support for PD research is provided by industry, the US Federal Government, and various US-based foundations such as the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Disease Research. Other major contributions of US scientists to PD include the introduction of progressive stages (1 through 5) of deterioration of motor function in PD [ 18 ]; the serendipitous discovery in the early 1980s that MPTP (1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine) induces a Parkinson's like illness [ 19 ]; the description of the first genetic aberration linked to Parkinson's disease at the National Human Genome Research Institute of the NIH [ 20 ] later opening the way to important investigation on PD in the field of genetics; and the important progress in deep brain stimulation therapy at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia [ 21 ], to name but a few. Finally, in 2012 under the auspices of the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke , the USA launched the Parkinson's Disease Biomarkers Program (PDBP) aimed at discovering PD biomarkers for use in phase II and III clinical trials [ 22 ]. The PDBP was developed in the context of the Harvard Biomarker Study, the Michael J. Fox Foundation Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI), and the Michael J. Fox Foundation BioFIND Project [ 23 ]. China. Evidence has shown that Parkinson's disease was well known to medical scholars in China as early as 425 BCE [ 24 ]. In the modern occidental literature, the early scientific publications of China on PD were minimal (<10 papers/year); however, by 2000 it increased rapidly and China ranked 2nd (after the USA) in the 2013–2017 period with 3986 publications (see supplementary data). The rapid literature growth of China is also illustrated by the successive publication of three versions of guidelines for the management of PD in China in 2006, 2009 and 2014 by the Chinese Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorder Society . Prior to 2006 there was a “lack of standardization for the management of PD in different regions and among different physicians, leading to different treatment levels in different regions and different physicians.” [ 25 ]. At the level of PD research, our observation corroborates the trends presented recently by the National Natural Science Foundation of China : the exponential growth since 2006 in the numbers of projects and research funding and from 2000 in the numbers of PD publications in PubMed [ 26 ]. In 2011 Shanghai hosted the XIX World Congress on Parkinson's Disease and Related Disorders . China's phenomenal scientific literature growth suggests that the “cross-over” between first and second positions of the USA and China is fast approaching around 2020–2025 [ 27 ]. Knowing that the projected number of individuals over age 50 with Parkinson disease will rise to nearly five million by 2030 [ 28 ], and that a recent study revealed the considerable economic burden accompanying this disease [ 29 ], the important efforts engaged by China, the most populous country of the world, in the battle against Parkinson's disease deserve to be noticed and supported. Finally, since the early 2000s academics have been supported by government incentives to encourage publications in Western (English) journals so that Chinese research can reach a broader audience worldwide [ 30 , 31 ]. China has greatly improved its research productivity on neurodegenerative diseases and between 2009 and 2013 it showed an impressive compound annual growth rate (11.6%) of articles in Brain and Neurosciences; it was only 2.9% for USA, and 3.6% for the EU-41 [ 32 ]. UK. For two centuries the UK has contributed to the growing body of knowledge of PD [ 33 ] and in the past 35 years, was second only to the USA in publications except for 2003–2007, 2008–2012, and 2013–2017 when it ranked third (see supplementary data). In the last three decades the UK increased its productivity nearly 25-fold: from 122 papers in 1983–1987 to 2983 in 2013–2017. The importance of the UK can be further illustrated by two examples: first is the fact that a UK researcher was a co-founder of the Movement Disorder Society in 1985 and its journal Movement Disorders in 1986; the second example is the UK contribution to the introduction of apomorphine to treat advanced complications of PD [ 34 ], and the development (since 1987) of the Queen Square Brain Bank for Neurological Disorders (which aims to provide the highest-possible quality of brain tissue for neuropathological studies and for scientific research in the UK and worldwide. Additionally, the first formal diagnostic criteria proposed for PD was issued by The UK Parkinson's Disease Society Brain Bank [ 35 ]. Germany. Germany's leading position (see supplementary data) is in accordance with a recent study which ranked Germany among the top-3 most productive neuroscience countries [ 14 ]. Germany has always been at the forefront of PD research; this is illustrated by the works of a German group who hypothesized 15 years ago that the disease process begins in the digestive tract and in the brain's center of smell [ 36 ]. From 2001 to 2004 a German researcher coordinated the European Network of Research, Diagnosis and Therapy in Parkinson's Disease. Finally, Germany hosted two congresses of the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society : 1992 in Munich, and 2017 in Berlin. Italy. From 1983 to 2002, Italy ranked between 6th and 7th among countries publishing PD research; however, from 2003 to 2017 it was among the top-5 most productive countries. Italy's scientific publishing on PD increased more than that of the worldwide literature: nearly 52-fold versus 34-fold (see supplementary data). This might be the consequence of Italy's long and active participation in neurological and neuroscience research [ 37 , 38 ]. Other examples of Italy's leading position are: the organization in 2004 of the International Congress on Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders and in 2015 the 21st congresses on Parkinson's Disease and Related Disorders in Milano, organized by the International Association of Parkinsonism and Related Disorders (IAPRD); and the number of projects on PD research listed in an EU-JPND report on the “mapping of Italian research excellence in neurodegenerative diseases” ( http://apre.it/media/38899/mappatura.pdf ). Canada. Canada continues to be among the top-7 most prolific countries on PD research (see supplementary data) through, inter alia , its involvement in building the PD community by the founding in 1995 of the journal Parkinsonism & Related Disorders . Additionally, Canada hosted the first WFN-organized congresses on Parkinson's Disease and Related Disorders in Montreal in 1959, and more recently (2011 in Toronto, and 2017 in Vancouver), two congresses of the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society, and the 3rd World Parkinson Congress in Montreal in 2013. Africa. African countries contributing to PD research ranged from 4 (1983–1987) to 22 (2013–2017). A recent review on neuroscience in Africa likewise noted the increase of African countries involved in neurological research [ 39 ]. Despite this increase, the low involvement of PD research in Africa is still worrying due to: WHO's recent report showing that Africa is lagging behind most of the rest of the world concerning medical, scientific and therapeutic equipment for neurodegenerative diseases [ 40 ]; an epidemiological review of neurodegenerative diseases in Sub-Saharan countries that found only 20 publications in PubMed from 7 of the 48 sub-Saharan countries [ 41 ]; and the rapidly increasing population and incidences of diseases in Africa. It is hoped that Africa, with the help of the international community, will do all it can to increase its involvement in PD research. EU. The productivity of the EU countries ranged from 36.4% to 43.9% of the overall scientific literature on PD and in 2013–2017 all of the 28 EU-members contributed publications (see supplementary data). Investment of EU institutions in PD research is illustrated by a rapid increase of the number of projects linked to PD and listed in the successive Framework Programmes (FP) for Research and Technological Development: <10 for each of the first four FPs from 1984 to 1998, and then an increase from 35 for FP5 (1998–2002) to 86 for the last FP7 (2007–2013). FP8 is known as Horizon 2020 from 2014 to 2020 ( https://data.europa.eu/euodp/en/data/dataset?q=cordis&ext_boolean=akk&sort=views_total+desc ). Recent examples of the EU investment in Horizon 2020 are two projects: (1) Magnetic Diagnostic Assay for Neurodegenerative Diseases (MADIA) aimed at detecting biomarkers specifically associated to Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, funded for €3.9 Million for three years (2017–2019) involving five EU-members: Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK ( https://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/206197_en.html ). (2) The EU-Joint Programme-Neurodegenerative Disease Research , launched in 2010 “to increase coordinated investment between participating countries in research aimed at finding causes, developing cures, and identifying appropriate ways to care for those with neurodegenerative diseases” including Parkinson's disease ( www.neurodegenerationresearch.eu ). Additionally, the European Parkinson Disease Association ( http://www.epda.eu.com ) launched in 1992, includes 22 EU-member states, plus the Faroe Islands, Israel, Norway, Switzerland and Ukraine; it plays an important role in the PD community of politicians, pharmacological industries, scientists, physicians and patients. Other countries. Even though other countries are not as productive as the six countries detailed above, their contributions must not be overlooked. For example, in 1979, the first graft of fetal ventral mesencephalic tissue in the rat 6-OHDA lesion model was made by a Swedish team, followed ten years later by the first implantation of a fetal-derived dopamine neuroblast in a human [ 42 ]. Another example is provided by the pioneering work of a French team at the end of the 1980s; they introduced high-frequency stimulation of the ventralis intermedius nucleus of the thalamus to replace thalamotomy in the treatment of tremor [ 43 , 44 ]. Their research opened a new avenue for PD therapeutics and its importance in the scientific publishing community is shown through various rankings [ 4 , 9 ]. Another important actor in PD research is Japan, who, with more than 6000 PD articles published during the 35 years studied, provided important contribution such as the first identification of mutations in the parkin gene in 1998 in Japanese patients with autosomal recessive juvenile parkinsonism [ 45 ] and more recently, the development of the world's first clinical trial using iPS (induced pluripotent stem) cells on Parkinson's disease at Kyoto university; and finally hosting the 10th Congress the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society in Kyoto in 2006. Although South Korea and India were negligible contributors of PD research papers in 1983–1987, their productivities started increasing in the last four periods starting in 1998–2002. By 2013–2017 South Korea ranked 10th and India 14th (see supplementary data). PD research in South Korea has been boosted by the Brain Research Promotion Act of 1998 and further stimulated by the Korean Brain Initiative project launched in 2016; its goal is “centered on deciphering the brain functions and mechanisms that mediate the integration and control of brain functions that underlie decision-making.” With this project encouraging global collaboration in neuroscience-focused projects [ 46 ], we should see South Korea among the top countries in PD research. Corresponding to the creation of India's Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders Society in 2001, the recent progression of India's PD research output was noted by Gupta and Bala (2013) [ 16 ]. In a recent review paper Surathi and his colleagues indicate that “the Indian population may differ from the rest of the world in the context of PD, be it epidemiology or genetics or response to treatment. … further research needs to be encouraged to understand the disease in Indian patients better, as all the results cannot be extrapolated from the Western literature to this heterogeneous Indian population” [ 47 ], especially as India's population will most likely exceed that of China by 2022 ( http://money.cnn.com/2015/07/30/news/economy/india-china-population/index.html ). Finally, it is important to note that every country/territory publishing research papers on PD contributes to the progression of research and that the total contribution pushes the timeline further forward for the development of better treatments and a (possible) cure for Parkinson's Disease. 4.3
PY - 2019/4
Y1 - 2019/4
N2 - This study charts the evolution of the scientific literature on Parkinson's disease (PD) from 1983 to 2017 to inform communities of scientists, physicians, patients, caregivers and politicians concerned with PD. Articles published in journals indexed in the Science Citation Index-Expanded database of the Web of Science were retrieved and analyzed in seven five-year periods: 1983–1987, 1988–1992, 1993–1997, 1998–2002, 2003–2007, 2008–2012 and 2013–2017. Over 35 years the number of research papers on PD increased 33-fold: 885 papers in 1983–1987 to 29,972 in 2013–2017. At the same time the number of countries contributing to PD research increased from 37 to 131. The USA was the most prolific country throughout, followed by several European (UK, Germany, Italy and France) and English-speaking (Canada and Australia) countries. By 2003, several Asian countries (China, South Korea, India and Turkey) emerged with rapid increases in publications related to PD. By 2013–2017, China surpassed all but the USA to rank 2nd globally in productivity. Despite an increase from 4 to 22 African countries publishing PD research from 1983 to 2017, most were either unproductive or contributed ≤5 papers in each five-year period. There has also been a 12-fold increase in the number of journals (232–2824) containing papers on PD. In 2013–2017 three PD-focused journals (Parkinsonism & Related Disorders, Movement Disorders and Journal of Parkinson's Disease) contained 6.8% of all PD papers while a large majority (82.5%) of journals published ≤ 10 papers. This quantitative study complements the numerous extant qualitative reviews to provide a global perspective on PD research.
AB - This study charts the evolution of the scientific literature on Parkinson's disease (PD) from 1983 to 2017 to inform communities of scientists, physicians, patients, caregivers and politicians concerned with PD. Articles published in journals indexed in the Science Citation Index-Expanded database of the Web of Science were retrieved and analyzed in seven five-year periods: 1983–1987, 1988–1992, 1993–1997, 1998–2002, 2003–2007, 2008–2012 and 2013–2017. Over 35 years the number of research papers on PD increased 33-fold: 885 papers in 1983–1987 to 29,972 in 2013–2017. At the same time the number of countries contributing to PD research increased from 37 to 131. The USA was the most prolific country throughout, followed by several European (UK, Germany, Italy and France) and English-speaking (Canada and Australia) countries. By 2003, several Asian countries (China, South Korea, India and Turkey) emerged with rapid increases in publications related to PD. By 2013–2017, China surpassed all but the USA to rank 2nd globally in productivity. Despite an increase from 4 to 22 African countries publishing PD research from 1983 to 2017, most were either unproductive or contributed ≤5 papers in each five-year period. There has also been a 12-fold increase in the number of journals (232–2824) containing papers on PD. In 2013–2017 three PD-focused journals (Parkinsonism & Related Disorders, Movement Disorders and Journal of Parkinson's Disease) contained 6.8% of all PD papers while a large majority (82.5%) of journals published ≤ 10 papers. This quantitative study complements the numerous extant qualitative reviews to provide a global perspective on PD research.
KW - Bibliometrics
KW - Country productivity
KW - Journal analysis
KW - Parkinson's disease
KW - Publication growth
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85056566673&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85056566673&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.parkreldis.2018.11.011
DO - 10.1016/j.parkreldis.2018.11.011
M3 - Review article
C2 - 30455157
AN - SCOPUS:85056566673
VL - 61
SP - 10
EP - 18
JO - Parkinsonism and Related Disorders
JF - Parkinsonism and Related Disorders
SN - 1353-8020
ER -