Skip to main content
Log in

The evaluation of Indian cancer research, 1990–2010

  • Published:
Scientometrics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Cancer research outputs in India have expanded greatly in recent years, with some concomitant increase in their citation scores. Part of the increase in output is attributable to greater coverage in the Web of Science of Indian journals, which are more clinical than international ones, and much less often cited. Other measures of esteem have also increased, such as the percentage of reviews and the immediacy with which Indian cancer articles are cited. Most of the output came from just nine of the 35 Indian states and Union Territories, led by New Delhi and Maharashtra. The distribution of the amount of research by cancer site correlates moderately positively with the relative disease burden, with mouth (head and neck) cancer (often caused by the chewing of tobacco or areca, betel or paan) causing the highest number of deaths and also being well researched. We also analysed the articles by type of research, with articles in genetics and chemotherapy being the most numerous. For articles published in 2009–2010, data were available on the funding acknowledgements, and we found, as expected, that articles in clinical subjects were less often supported by external funding than ones in basic research. The major source of support was the Government of India, with relatively small contributions from charities and industry, unlike the situation in the UK and other western European countries.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Bosch, F. X., Albero, G., & Castellsague, X. (2009). Male circumcision, human papillomavirus and cervical cancer: From evidence to intervention. Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care, 35(1), 5–7.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bouchard, L., Dalpe, R., & Ducharme, D. (2000). The evolution of breast and ovarian cancer gene research: A bibliometric study. American Journal of Human Genetics, 67(S2), 104.

    Google Scholar 

  • Calo, W. A., Suarez-Balseiro, C., Suarez, E., Soto-Salgado, M., Santiago-Rodriguez, E. J., & Ortiz, A. P. (2010). Assessing the scientific research productivity of Puerto Rican cancer researchers: Bibliometric analysis from the Science Citation Index. Puerto Rico Health Sciences Journal, 29(S1), 250–255.

    Google Scholar 

  • Campbell, D., Picard-Aitken, M., Cote, G., et al. (2010). Bibliometrics as a performance measurement tool for research evaluation: The case of research funded by the National Cancer Institute of Canada. American Journal of Evaluation, 31(1), 66–83.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chua, T. C., Crowe, P. H., & Morris, D. L. (2011). Trends in surgical oncology research in Australia during the period 1998–2009—A bibliometric review. Journal of Surgical Oncology, 104(2), 216–219.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dawson G, Lucocq B, Cottrell R and Lewison G (1998) Mapping the Landscape: National Biomedical Research Outputs 198895. London: The Wellcome Trust, policy report no 9. ISBN 1869835 95 6.

  • Dodge, O. G., Linsell, C. A., & Davies, J. N. (1963). Circumcision and the incidence of carcinoma of the penis and the cervix. A study in Kenya and Uganda Africans. East African Medical Journal, 40, 440–444.

    Google Scholar 

  • Drain, P. K., Halperin, D. T., Hughes, J. P., Klausner, J. D., & Bailey, R. C. (2006). Male circumcision, religion, and infectious diseases: An ecologic analysis of 118 developing countries. BMC Infectious Diseases, 6, e172. doi:10.1186/1471-2334-6-172.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eckhouse, S., Lewison, G., & Sullivan, R. (2008). Trends in the global funding and activity of cancer research. Molecular Oncology, 2, 20–32.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Glynn, R. W., Chin, J. Z., Kenn, M. J., & Sweeney, K. J. (2010a). Representation of cancer in the medical literature—A bibliometric analysis. PLOS One, 5(11), e13902.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Glynn, R. W., Scutaru, C., Kerin, M. J., & Sweeney, K. J. (2010b). Breast cancer research output, 1945–2008: A bibliometric and density-equalizing analysis. Breast Cancer Research, 12, R108.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Healy, N. A., Glynn, R. W., Scutaru, C., Groneberg, D., Kerin, M. J., & Sweeney, K. J. (2011). The h index and the identification of global benchmarks for breast cancer research output. Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, 127, 845–851.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ho, Y.-S., Satoh, H., & Lin, S.-Y. (2010). Japanese lung cancer research trends and performance in Science Citation Index. Internal Medicine, 49, 2219–2228.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Indian Council of Medical Research. (2010) http://www.ncrpindia.org/Cancer_Atlas_India/chapter3_1.htm.

  • Larke, N. L., Thomas, S. L., Silva, I. D., & Weiss, H. A. (2011). Male circumcision and penile cancer: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Cancer Causes and Control, 22(8), 1097–1110.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lewison, G. (2003). The publication of cancer research papers in high impact journals. Aslib Proceedings, 55(5–6), 379–387.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lewison, G. (2009). The percentage of reviews in research output: A simple measure of research esteem. Research Evaluation, 18, 25–37.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lewison, G. (2011). Definition of cancer research: Journals, titles, abstracts or keywords? DESIDOC Journal of Library & Information Technology, 31(5), 333–339.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewison, G., & Markusova, V. (2010). The evaluation of Russian cancer research. Research Evaluation, 19, 129–144.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lewison, G., & Paraje, G. (2004). The classification of biomedical journals by research level. Scientometrics, 60, 145–157.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lewison, G., Purushotham, A., Mason, M., McVie, G., & Sullivan, R. (2010). Understanding the impact of public policy on cancer research: A bibliometric approach. European Journal of Cancer, 46(5), 912–919.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lopez-Illescas, C., de Moya-Anegon, F., & Moed, H. F. (2008a). The actual citation impact of European oncological research. European Journal of Cancer, 44, 228–236.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lopez-Illescas, C., de Moya-Anegon, F., & Moed, H. F. (2008b). Coverage and citation impact of oncological journals in the Web of Science and Scopus. Journal of Informetrics, 2(4), 304–316.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lopez-Illescas, C., de Moya-Anegon, F., & Moed, H. F. (2009). Comparing bibliometric country-by-country rankings derived from the Web of Science and Scopus: The effect of poorly cited journals in oncology. Journal of Information Science, 35, 244–256.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Misra, S., Chaturvedi, A., & Misra, N. C. (2004). Penile carcinoma: A challenge for the developing world. Lancet Oncology, 5(4), 240–247.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ortiz, A. P., Calo, W. A., Suarez-Balseiro, C., Maura-Sardo, M., & Suarez, E. (2009). Bibliometric assessment of cancer research in Puerto Rico, 1903–2005. Revista Panamericana de Salud Publica—Pan American Journal of Public Health, 25(4), 355–361.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schoen, E. J. (1991). The relationship between circumcision and cancer of the penis. CA-A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, 41(5), 306–309.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sheth, A., & Singhal, M. (2011). India Philanthropy Report 2011. Bain & Co. November 6, 2011 from http://www.bain.com/Images/Bain_Philanthropy_Report_2011.pdf.

  • Ugolini, D., Puntoni, R., Perera, F. P., Schulte, P. A., & Bonnassi, S. (2007). A bibliometric analysis of scientific production in cancer molecular epidemiology. Carcinogenesis, 28(8), 1774–1779.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wilson CS (2005) General analyses of cancer research publications in Australian states using the Science and Social Science Citation Indexes. In P. Ingwersen, B. Larsen (Eds.), Proceedings of the 10th International Conference of the International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics (pp. 168–176). Stockholm.

  • World Health Organization. (2010). http://www.who.int/healthinfo/global_burden_disease/gbddeathdalycountryestimates2004.xls.

Download references

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a grant from the Fondazione Umberto Veronesi in Milan. We are indebted to Aparna Basu and Divya Srivastava for helpful comments, particularly on the Indian cancer burden, and to Richard Sullivan for the development of the sub-filters for cancer manifestation and research type.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Grant Lewison.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Lewison, G., Roe, P. The evaluation of Indian cancer research, 1990–2010. Scientometrics 93, 167–181 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-012-0633-9

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-012-0633-9

Keywords

Navigation