title: [Current situation and developmental trend of anthelmintics by bibliometrics].
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To understand the current situation and developmental trend of anthelmintics in English journals through a bibliometric analysis.
  
  
  METHODS
  The literature was searched in Pubmed Database (1997-2007) using the following key words: "drug therapy", "anthelmintics", "humans", "pharmacology", and "parasitology". Access Database was constructed by relative literature through proper data admission method. The relative articles in the database were sorted by different categories, such as "research categories", "publishing year" and "research drug". Data were analyzed by using SPSS software.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The annual number of anthelmintics articles increased steadily from year 1997 to 2007. The average number of annual increase was about 6. The major research category was applied research. The major diseases were schistosomiasis, filariasis, ascariasis, echinococcosis and hookworm disease. The number of articles on schistosomiasis was higher than that of other four diseases (P<0.05). The major drugs involved were albendazole, praziquantel, mebendazole, ivermectin and diethylcarbamazine. Articles on the anthelmintics were published mostly in medical journals. From the total database, articles published at the top five journals occupied 5.52%, 4.39%, 3.76%, 3.26%, and 3.26%, respectively.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Increasingly importance has been attached to anthelmintics in the last decade. Meanwhile, the researchers focused on a few anthelmintics, and it is inevitable to develop new drugs.
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Parasitic Diseases, Chinese Center For Disease Control and Prevention, WHO Collaborating Centre of Malaria, Schistosomiasis and Filariasis, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Qi
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Li-Guang
authors.initials: LG
authors.lastname: Tian
authors.forename: Xiao-Nong
authors.initials: XN
authors.lastname: Zhou
mesh_terms: D015766:Albendazole; D000871:Anthelmintics; D015706:Bibliometrics; D006801:Humans; D010506:Periodicals as Topic; D012189:Retrospective Studies
chemical_list: D000871:Anthelmintics; D015766:Albendazole