Special Issue of the 1st International Applied Bioinformatics Conference (iABC'21)

How has the field of metastatic breast cancer in bones evolved over the past 22 years?

Background

Although knowledge on metastatic breast cancer in bones (MBCB) has increased rapidly over the past 22 years, a comprehensive and objective bibliometric analysis is still lacking.

Materials and methods

We used R, VOSviewer, and Citespace software to conduct a bibliometric analysis of 5,497 papers on MBCB from the Web of Science Core Collection (WOSCC) using author, institution, country/region, citation, and keyword indicators.

Results

A general strong sense of scholarly collaboration was noted in the MBCB field at the author, research institution, and country/region levels. We discovered some outstanding authors and highly productive institutions, but with less collaboration with other academic groups. Unbalanced and uncoordinated developments were observed among countries/regions in the field of MBCB research. We also found that by using various indicators and applying different analysis methods to them, we were able to broadly identify primary clinical practices, relevant clinical experiments, and directions for bioinformatics regarding MBCB, changes over the past 22 years, and current challenges in the field. The development of knowledge on MBCB is progressing greatly; however, MBCB is still incurable.

Conclusion

This study is the first to use bibliometrics to provide an overall analysis of the scientific output of MBCB studies. Palliative therapies for MBCB are mostly in a mature state. However, research on the molecular mechanisms and immune response to tumors related to the development of treatments to cure MBCB remains relatively immature. Therefore, further research should be undertaken in this area.

Ten simple rules for organizing a special session at a scientific conference

Special sessions are important parts of scientific meetings and conferences: They gather together researchers and students interested in a specific topic and can strongly contribute to the success of the conference itself. Moreover, they can be the first step for trainees and students to the organization of a scientific event. Organizing a special session, however, can be uneasy for beginners and students. Here, we provide ten simple rules to follow to organize a special session at a scientific conference.