Gastrointestinal cancers in Iran: Iranian scientists approach to gastrointestinal cancers researches in international databases

Gastrointestinal (GI) cancer is one of the most common and fatal type of cancers and it is responsible for about half of mortalities from cancer (44.4%) in Iran. The purpose of the study was to evaluate scientific output of Iran in the matter of gastrointestinal cancer in selected international databases (Scopus, Medline). Regarding the considerable prevalence of GI cancers in Iran and the world and its impact on patients and society the necessity toward scientific investigations seems to be highlighted.
A cross - sectional descriptive survey was conducted using Scientometrics criteria. Data were collected from two Medline and Scopus databases as search ground. To extract data from the advanced search link in Scopus database, the researcher made searching strategy designed to include all of “GI cancer-related” keywords was used. Keywords included 17 terms combined with 9 keywords about malignancy, tumor and cancer. Ultimately, we formed 153 different keywords. The search strategy in Medline database was designed based on Medical Subject headings (MeSH) via a subject specialist (medical specialist) help.
analyzed data showed that 1826 documents in terms of GI cancer written by Iranian researchers were indexed in Scopus and 468 in Medline databases. Regarding the subject matter, Iran’s ranking was 30 in the Scopus, 31 in Medline, 10 within Asian countries, and 3 in Middle-east. Tehran University of Medical Sciences with production of 35.17 percent of documents in Scopus database and 27.35 percent of documents in the Medline database was identified as most active centers in this field .In both of these databases, “Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention” includes most Iranian documents in this field.
The study suggested a linear increase of scientific production in the field of GI cancers during the studied period in both databases. However, there is still a significant gap between Iran's scientific output indexed in the field and the growing number of GI cancers in the community. Therefore, the policymakers should pay more attention to improving the research activities in the field of GI.