This study aimed to conduct a bibliometric analysis of the literature related to phages in cancer immunotherapy to reveal the research hotspots and evolutionary trends in this field. We extracted all relevant publications from the Web of Science Core Collection database for the period from 2000 to 2024. CiteSpace, VOSviewer, and R software were used to evaluate and visualize core authors, journals, countries, literature, trending topics, and research hotspots in this field. Among 485 publications, the number of annual publications showed a general upward trend. North America and East Asia were the main contributing regions, with the United States and China being the most productive countries. The University of Pennsylvania became one of the most influential research institutions, and the Journal of Immunology was the most prolific and highly cited. Gao Yanfeng is the most published scholar in the field, and Nicole F is the most cited book. Keyword co-occurrence and clustering analysis revealed that the research hotspots encompassed 5 areas: phage display, cancer immunotherapy, immune cell function regulation, target identification and protein action, and biomarker mining. This study employs bibliometric analysis methods to systematically review research progress in the field of phage and cancer immunotherapy from 2000 to 2024, identify key research directions in this field, and predict future research trends. The aim is to provide valuable directions and recommendations for subsequent research in the field of phage and cancer immunotherapy.
Wang et al. (2026) studied this question.