Global research trends and hotspots in the application of lasers for acne treatment from 1986 to 2022: bibliometric and visual analysis.

Abstract

Conventional acne treatments are associated with side effects from medication and antibiotic resistance, leading to the search for alternative therapeutic modes of action, such as lasers. The considered bibliometric and visual analysis was designed to present the research publications related to the application of lasers in the treatment of acne from 1986 to 2022, identifying the trends and foremost contributing countries, institutions, and journals. The Scopus database was used to explore publications related to the use of lasers for the treatment of acne. The publications were reviewed based on predefined criteria, including the year of publication, study type, country of origin, affiliated institutions, journals, and citation patterns, employing descriptive analysis. The data were subsequently entered into Microsoft Excel 2016. Furthermore, for the creation of visualization maps depicting international collaborations and research hotspots, we employed VOSviewer software version 1.6.20. A total of 469 documents were retrieved from the Scopus database for analysis. Of those, 74.41% were original articles, 12.15% were reviews, 3.84% were letters, and 9.59% were other forms of publications. Since 2003, the number of publications has shown a consistent positive trend, with a slight plateau between 2012 and 2019. The United States was the most contributing country (33.26%), followed by South Korea (10.23%) and China (10.02%). The emerging research hotspots were "fractional laser therapy and carbon dioxide (CO2) lasers", "types of laser therapy and combination therapies for acne treatment", and "the effectiveness of laser treatments". This study is the first bibliometric analysis of the use of lasers in acne management. These findings indicate an increasing interest in this emerging field, especially in exploring the efficacy of various types and combinations of lasers. This study can help researchers and policymakers understand research trends and gaps to guide future research, collaboration, and decision-making.