Bibliometric and visual analysis of diabetic keratopathy research: trends, collaborations, and future directions

Purpose Diabetic keratopathy has gained increasing attention due to advancements in diagnostic and therapeutic techniques a. This article presents a visual and bibliometric analysis to illustrate the knowledge network, research hotspots, trends, and potential future directions in this field.Methods We retrieved articles published since 2000 from the Web of Science and analyzed the authors, institutions, countries, keywords, citations, and co-citations of these articles with VOSviewer and CiteSpace.Results A total of 706 highly relevant articles were identified, with the United States, China and England as major contributors; the University of Manchester, Queensland University of Technology and Weill Cornell Medical-Qatar as key institutions; and Malik Rayaz, Efron Nathan and Ferdousi Maryam as prominent authors. High-citation articles have focused mainly on corneal confocal microscopy and diabetic peripheral neuropathy. Keywords form two clusters: one around complications, diabetes and cornea sensitivity, and another around corneal confocal microscopy and peripheral neuropathy.Conclusion The identification of diabetic peripheral neuropathy via corneal confocal microscopy has been a major focus of research in this field, but the mechanisms underlying diabetic corneal neuropathy still require further investigation and breakthroughs.