METHODS: This bibliometric work investigated the academic publication trends in medical image segmentation technology. These data were collected from the Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection and the Scopus. In the quantitative analysis stage, important visual maps were produced to show publication trends from five different perspectives including annual publications, countries, top authors, publication sources, and keywords. In the qualitative analysis stage, the frequently used methods and research trends in the medical image segmentation field were analyzed from 49 publications with the top annual citation rates.
RESULTS: The analysis results showed that the number of publications had increased rapidly by year. The top related countries include the Chinese mainland, the United States, and India. Most of these publications were conference papers, besides there are also some top journals. The research hotspot in this field was deep learning-based medical image segmentation algorithms based on keyword analysis. These publications were divided into three categories: reviews, segmentation algorithm publications, and other relevant publications. Among these three categories, segmentation algorithm publications occupied the vast majority, and deep learning neural network-based algorithm was the research hotspots and frontiers.
CONCLUSIONS: Through this bibliometric research work, the research hotspot in the medical image segmentation field is uncovered and can point to future research in the field. It can be expected that more researchers will focus their work on deep learning neural network-based medical image segmentation.