Innovation status of gene therapy for breast cancer.

BACKGROUND To analyze multi-source data including publications and patents, and try to draw the whole landscape of the research and development community in the field of gene therapy for breast cancer. MATERIALS AND METHODS Publications and patents were collected from the Web of science and databases of the five major patent offices of the world, respectively. Bibliometric methodologies and technology are used to investigate publications/patents, their contents and relationships. RESULTS A total of 2,043 items published and 947 patents from 1994 to 2013 including "gene therapy for breast cancer" were retrieved. The top five countries in global publication share were USA, China, Germany, Japan and England. On the other hand, USA, Australia, England, South Korea and Japan were the main producers of patents. The universities and enterprises of USA had the highest amount of publication and patents. Adenovirus- and retrovirus-based gene therapies and small interfering RNA (siRNA) interference therapies were the main topics both in publications and patents. CONCLUSIONS The above results show that global research in the field of gene therapy for breast cancer is increasing and the main participants in this field are USA and Canada in North America, China, Japan and South Korea in Asia, and England, Germany, and Italy in Europe. Also, this article demonstrates the usefulness of bibliometrics to address key evaluation questions and define future areas of research.