Oncology Research Output and its Citation Analysis at Continental level: A Study (2003-2012)

The present study examines the research output and citation analysis in the field of Oncology, a branch of medical science which deals with the study and treatment of tumours, what we commonly know as cancer. Cancer as a disease is not confined to a particular region or a country, but is a global phenomenon and is still beyond the complete understanding and control of medicos. Research in the field of biomedical sciences in general and oncology is particular is undertaken at global level with almost each country contributing its bit in understating and control of disease. The study makes an empirical assessment of the research output and growth in the field of oncology at continental level for the period 2003-2012 and evaluates the aspects like research growth, citation analysis, h-Index etc. Data for the present study has been retrieved from the SCImago Journal and Country Ranking, which is totally based on the SCOPUS data source. Findings: - A total of 310593 research papers were published across six continents of the world during the period 2003-2012. Europe emerged the largest continent with its publication share of (124598, 40.11 %). Europe is followed by North America with its share percentage of (102897, 33.12 %) and Asia with (70555, 22.71 %). The contribution of Oceania, South America & Africa to the world oncology research is not that encouraging, as such there is greater need to promote oncology research in these continents. African contribution to global oncology research during the period remained (2215, 0.71 %), South American (3009, 0.96 %) and Oceania contributed (7319, 2.35 %). Oncology research publication on average during the period of study grew annually at 8.15 %, while as at continental level Africa registered highest annual publication growth of 19.08 %. North America and Europe are the only continents which recorded publication's growth below the average global growth.


INTRODUCTION
Cancer is known as the second largest killer disease after cardiovascular diseases. In 2012 more than 8.2 million [1] deaths were reported across the world due to cancer. The large scale deaths due to cancer can be owed to the fact that medical science has not yet fully developed understanding and control over the disease. Of the late the disease is still controllable if detected at the early or initial stage of its occurrence, but the same becomes quite impossible to control if detected in middle or last stage of its occurrence.
Cases of morbidity and mortality by cancer are prevalent in each region of the world. As per The World Cancer Report (2014) more than 32.6 million people across the globe were living with cancer by the end of 2012 [2]. Liver, Lung, Prostate, Colorectal, Stomach is the common organs among males, which suffer with this disease, while as women mostly have been found with suffering from Breast cancer, Colorectal, Lung, Cervix & Stomach cancers are very common.
Although prevalence of cancer is not confined to any specific region, continent or country, but still the studies so far conducted in this direction have confirmed of high cancer incidence rate with high-income countries, mostly in North America and Western Europe along with Japan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand [3]. As per the World Cancer Report (2014), the disease has made an increasing shift towards the low and middle income countries.
Poor health care and unhygienic life style with increasing population has put these nations at greater risk of suffering with an increase in cancer related incidences. Experts are of the view that due to unhealthy lifestyle annual incidence of cancer in low and middle income countries is likely to grow by 70 % by 2030 [4]. This indeed is the area of concern, whereby low and middle income nations have to take some drastic measure to tackle such kind of outbreak. Need is to put more and more emphasis on the oncology research so that the alarming increase in the cancer incidence cases be put under control to a sustainable level. Africa, Asia & Central and South America have been detected as high cancer concentration zones with more than 60 % cases of cancer incidence and nearly 70 % cancer related deaths have been reported from these regions [5].
Keeping in view the above fact, the idea to undertake the bibliometric study on the research output in the field of oncology at continental level was conceived. To undertake the preset study data was retrieved on April 29, 2014 from the official website of the SCImago Journal and Country Ranking accessible at: http://www.scimagojr.com/countryrank.php?area=2700&category=2730&region=all&year=a ll&order=it&min=0&min_type=it.
The database is purely a SCOPUS data series. The study lasts around all the six continents of the world viz., Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, Oceania and South America.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Oncology is perhaps one of the major biomedical research areas in which a good number of metric studies have already been undertaken by researchers both at the national and global level. Some of the key studies undertaken earlier in the field of oncology and relevant to present study have been reviewed hereunder. Micheli

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Grossi, Belvedere & Rosso (2003) [7] evaluated 3142 publications undertaken in clinical cancer research for the period 1995-1999, covering discussion around chemotherapy combined with other treatments along with impact factor of publications published from each individual country. The authors also draw the comparison of Impact factor between oncology publications between the European Union and North America in which North American publication emerged better over the EU. United States with 37.7 % publication share percentage emerged the leading oncology research country, followed by Italy, United Kingdom and Japan. Hortobagyi et al. (2005) [8] undertook study over the breast cancer incidence, mortality and survival rate across different regions of the world which authors found varying considerably from country to country and region to region. The authors underlie various complex factors like population structure, lifestyle, environment and socioeconomic status that play a part in the incidence, mortality and survival of breast cancer.   [9] undertook a bibliometric study on breast cancer research output for the period 1945-2008 by analysing 180126 publications concerning breast cancer and found that the United States as the largest contributor to the breast cancer research followed by the United Kingdom and Germany. The researchers further found that there is a growing trend towards collaborative research among nations and united stated again was found the leading nation in this sphere. Furthermore, the researchers revealed that collaborative publications are the ones which are more cited. Ugolini [12] undertook bibliometric study of cancer research in Puerto Rico for the period 1903-2005 by evaluating 369 articles and found that majority 39.6 % publications were university publications, 72.1 % articles were written in English language, 69.6 % articles were original research papers and the studies were mostly concerned with digestive cancer studies and Gynecology. The authors further observed that although research in the field of oncology has increased significantly in the country, especially post 1913 but the rate of cancer mortality has increased even at a much faster rate.

PROBLEM STATEMENT
Research is the backbone of every subject field. Research not just helps a subject entity to survive and sustain under the prevailing circumstances, but also helps it to lay down a path for its furtherance. All the sciences are bound to suffer if they fail to add new knowledge to their existing pool of knowledge. Pure & applied sciences are more susceptible to obsolesce at a greater pace than the social sciences, hence there is a greater degree of need to undertake International Letters of Natural Sciences Vol. 17 constant and continuous research in these very areas. Biomedical science is one such important area where scientific investigations become obsolete at a greater pace, hence constant and continuous research is the only way out which helps biomedical sciences to keep pace with the requirements of the robust health sector.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The study aims to evaluate the research output in the field of oncology at continental level along with other allied areas, undertaken during the last decade viz., for the period 2003-2012. To assess the annual research growth in the given field at both continental and global level, along with aspects like citation analysis and h-index, which more or less have become the parameters to assess the quality of research in any given filed.

METHODOLOGY & APPROACH
Present study has been purely undertaken on secondary data, retrieved from official website of SCImago Journal and Country Ranking on April 29, 2014 accessible at Http://www.scimagojr.com/countryrank.php?area=2700&category=2730&region=all&year= all&order=it&min=0&min_type=it. Given the objects of the study, the data upon retrieval was in a semi structured form, hence was structured by segregating countries as per their affiliation to different continents of the world, and to do the needful, world atlas were used, accessible at www.worldatlas.com. To evaluate the data various statistical & mathematical tools and techniques were employed. The study leaves enough scope to study the allied aspects of oncology research both at regional and country level. Expressions like percentage etc. at all the places has been drawn up to two decimal places and has not been rounded off, so at places may reflect a slight variation while computing data for 100 % figure.

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Annual growth of oncology publications at global level for the period remained 8.15 %, while as at continental level Africa emerged the leading continent with an annual publication's growth of 19.08 %, followed by South America & Oceania with an annual growth of 15.41 % & 12.35 % respectively. The reason for the high growth percentage of lesser contributing continents is for the fact that even a small increase in the corresponding growth by these continents is going to make a bigger difference in their annual growth, while as the same is not the case with continents conducting research at large scale in the given field, as this will reflect a proportionate increase, hence may not make much difference to their existing growth. Annual growth of publication in Asia was recorded at 13.74 %, North America, 6.47 % and Europe 6.20 %. Citable documents are generally seen differently from those documents which may not or cannot be cited for different reasons. Given the fact, above tabulation analysis, distribution of citable oncology publications for different continents. At the global level a total of 281473 suitable publications was produced during the period of study, constituting 90.62 % of the total oncology publications, with a maximum (39068, 13.87 %) published during the year 2012. The scenario in this tabulation is almost similar to that of the table-I with maximum 40.09 % citable documents published from Europe, followed by North America and Asia with a share percentage of 32.22 % & 23.65 % respectively. Africa and South America has a less than 1 % contribution and Oceania 2.33 %.

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ILNS Volume 17  Annual growth of citable documents at global level remained at 7.74 %, while as Africa tops the list with an annual growth of 18.  . This is also somewhere an indicator of the fact that oncology publication from Europe and North America are more popular among the oncology researchers across the globe. Though receiving a higher or greater number of citations cannot be argued about the publication being of quality research, but this somewhere has become a parameter to assess the worthiness of a publication.  Africa has a self citation share percentage of 9.25%, Oceania 13.60 %, South America 11.61 %. Average self citations received by each oncology publication from each continent deserve to be analysed. North America is the leading continent which has maximum number of average 9.28 self citations for each oncology publication, followed by Europe and Asia with 2.84 and 2.39 average self citations respectively. Oceania has 2.31, South America 1.59 and Africa 0.85 average self citations in their each oncology research publication, published during the period of study.

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On average the h-index of oncology publications at global level grew at 0.31% annually during the period of study.

CONCLUSIONS
Africa, Oceania & South America compared to their counterparts like, Asia, Europe and North America are the continents which have made very little contribution to global oncology research. Africa and South America are the continents which mostly comprises of the lesser developed nations, hence cannot press sufficient money towards research activities in the given field. Agencies like WHO, World Bank, IMF, etc. has got to play a very vital role whereby they can lend helping hand to all under developing countries to create the infrastructure so as to undertake research in the given field. Developed nations can extend financial support and can also train their human resource to explore the hitherto untouched biomedical research areas.
Europe and North America are the two leading continents of the world which have significantly contributed to the global oncology research. Countries like the United States, Italy, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Japan and China are some of the leading oncology research countries of the world and rightly so for the fact that these are the most developed nations of the world. At continental level US dominates the scene in North America, Japan and China in Asia and the rest in Europe.
There are also some smaller and under developing nations which coexist with developed ones in developed regions of the world, but for the want of adequate facility and resources are not able to contribute in the given field. These smaller nations are mostly dependent on the developed nations for the advanced medical attention and other such