Advancements and current trends in tumor treating fields: a scientometric analysis

Our plain-English summary of Advancements and current trends in tumor treating fields: a scientometric analysis, by Y. Xing, F. Yasinjan, J. Cui, et al (International Journal of Surgery, 2024).

The study

• Authors: Y. Xing, F. Yasinjan, J. Cui, Y. Peng, M. He, W. Liu, X. Hong
• Journal: International Journal of Surgery
• Published: 2024;110(5):2978-2991
• Cited by: 9 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher · Free full text

Abstract

Tumor treating fields (TTFields) therapy is a novel and effective noninvasive cancer therapy, and it has been approved by FDA in the treatment of recurrent and newly diagnosed glioblastoma, and malignant pleural mesothelioma. Moreover, TTFields therapy has been widely studied in both clinical trials and preclinical studies in recent years. Based on its high efficacy, research on TTFields therapy has been a hot topic. Thus, the authors made this scientometric analysis of TTfields to reveal the scientometric distributions such as annual publications and citations, countries and institutions, authors, journals, references, and more importantly, research status and hot topics of the field. In recent years, publication numbers have been stable at high values, and citation numbers have been increasing greatly. The United States and Israel were the top two countries with the highest publication numbers, followed by Germany and Switzerland. Scientometric analyses of keywords indicated that clinical applications and antitumor mechanisms are probably the two main parts of current research on TTfields. Most clinical trials of TTfields focus on the treatment of glioblastoma. And a variety of other cancers such as lung cancer especially nonsmall cell lung cancer, hepatic cancer, other brain tumors, etc. have also been studied in both clinical trials and preclinical studies.

Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.

In plain English

This article was a scientometric analysis (a study of publication and citation patterns) of research on tumor treating fields (TTFields), a cancer therapy that uses alternating electric fields. The journal labeled it a review article. It did not study asbestos or asbestos exposure. On 23 September 2023 the authors searched the Science Citation Index Expanded in the Web of Science for English-language meeting abstracts, articles and reviews. They found 1332 records covering 2006 to 2023, cited 12 398 times in total. The United States had the most publications (542, or 40.54%), followed by Israel (422), Germany (274) and Switzerland (173). The company Novocure was the top institution, with 405 publications. Among disease keywords, glioblastoma was the most frequent (88 occurrences), and malignant pleural mesothelioma appeared 3 times. The authors concluded that clinical applications and antitumor mechanisms were probably the two main parts of current TTFields research, and that most clinical trials focused on glioblastoma. They noted three limitations: the search covered only English-language publications, used a single database, and searched only specific fields.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Scientometric (bibliometric) analysis of published literature, labeled a review article by the journal
• Who was studied: 1332 English-language records (933 meeting abstracts, 263 articles, 136 reviews) on tumor treating fields, retrieved from the Web of Science Science Citation Index Expanded on 23 September 2023, covering 2006 to 2023
• Exposure: No asbestos exposure was studied. The subject was published research on tumor treating fields (TTFields) therapy.
• Main results:
  • The 1332 publications had a combined 12 398 citations, about 9.31 citations per paper
  • The United States had the most publications (n = 542, 40.54%), and Israel was second with 422
  • Germany had 274 publications (20.57%) and Switzerland 173 (12.99%)
  • Novocure was the top institution, with 405 publications
  • Glioblastoma was the most frequent disease keyword (n = 88)
  • Malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) appeared as a keyword 3 times
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that keyword analyses indicated clinical applications and antitumor mechanisms are probably the two main parts of current TTFields research, and that most TTFields clinical trials focus on glioblastoma
• Limitations the authors state:
  • Possible English-language bias, so relevant non-English articles may have been missed
  • Reliance on a single database may not capture all relevant publications
  • Limiting the search to specific fields such as title, abstract and keywords could exclude relevant publications

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Tumor Treating Fields (TTFields), Pleural Mesothelioma, Clinical Trial, Lung Cancer.

Related studies

• A review of tumor treating fields (TTFields): advancements in clinical applications and mechanistic insights — X. Li, K. Liu, et al. (2023)
• Tumour treating fields therapy for glioblastoma: current advances and future directions — O. Rominiyi, A. Vanderlinden, et al. (2021)
• Advancement in tumor treating fields of mechanism, clinical applications, and future directions — M. Zang, S. Zhu, et al. (2025)
• The Mechanisms of Action of Tumor Treating Fields — J.C. Moser, E. Salvador, et al. (2022)
• Tumor Treating Fields (TTFields) Therapy in Unresectable Pleural Mesothelioma: Overview of Efficacy, Safety, and Future Outlook — G.L. Ceresoli, L. Gianoncelli (2025)
• Efficacy and immunogenic effects of Tumor Treating Fields (TTFields) in preclinical models of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, with and without gemcitabine/nab-paclitaxel — T. Kan, T. Haj Khalil, et al. (2026)

Browse return to medical research.