Interest in antibiotic pharmacokinetic modelling in the context of optimising dosing and reducing resistance: bibliometric analysis

Introduction:
In the era of problems with resistant bacteria strains, pharmacokinetic (PK) modelling offers ways to optimise antibiotic therapy and minimise the risk of resistance development. This bibliometric study aimed to investigate trends in PK modelling stu­dies. The goal was to provide researchers with comprehensive insight and identify future needs.

Material and methods:
We used Bibliometrix, VOSviewer, and CiteSpace to analyse Web of Science articles on antibiotic PK modelling from 1983 to March 2023.

Results:
We analysed 968 papers following the inclusion criteria and built a keywords co-occurrence map and timeline. The average annual growth rate of subject-related publications was 35.56% between 1983 and 2022, maintaining a continuous upward trend. Roberts J.A., Lipman J., and Wallis S.C. are the three most productive and impactful authors (82, 57, 34 articles, and h-index of 30, 25, 15, respectively). The United States leads in this field of research (29.13% of papers). The most relevant affiliations are the University of Queensland, Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, and Monash University. The top three most productive and impactful journals are Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, and International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents (181, 83, 47 articles and h-index of 42, 30, 18, respectively). Most articles by keyword clustered on meropenem, vancomycin, and amikacin. Moreover, therapeutic drug monitoring, resistance, antibiotic dosing, target attainment, the intensive care unit, and paediatrics are the most trending aspects.

Conclusions:
Given the results of this study, we expect to see a steady increase in interest in exploiting the potential of PK modelling for optimising antibiotic therapy.