Iranian Cancer Research Outputs: A Scientometric Study

Background and The status and role of each country in scientific production in specific fields may indicate the potential and its performance in promoting and improving that particular issue. Cancer is a major health problem in Iran, so this study aimed to investigate the role of scientific production of Iran about cancer.
We conducted a scientometric study using Iranian articles about cancer based on the Scopus database and Web of Science. The electronic search was done according to subject and affiliation for articles published until 2015. Data was then extracted using the Analyze Search Result.
According to Scopus at the end of 2015, Iran had 2865 articles about cancer placing the country in 29th position. The H-Index score for the country was 52 which placed Iran in 45th position in the world. The impact factor of articles published by Iranian researchers on cancer in Eastern Mediterranean region was 4 and the number of papers placed Iran in third place. By the end of 2015, a total of 1868 articles were indexed by Web of Science of which 27.5% were published in Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention.
The number of Iranian articles in the field of cancer is increasing in international databases, yet the number of articles in high-quality journals is low. This requires appropriate planning that could improve Iran’s position on scientific productions about cancer.