Liposomes, The Attractive Vehicles for Drug Delivery: A Scientometric Mapping of Web of Science Indexed Literature

The Liposome is a spherical-shaped vesicle composed of one or more phospholipid bilayers, closely resembling cell membranes' structure. It has a novel drug delivery system (NDDS); the lipid bilayer can fuse with other bilayers, such as the cell membrane, thus delivering the liposome contents. The present study has been conducted to map the research productivity of 'liposomes as drug delivery' between 1980 and 2021. This study employed the scientometric method to analyze 629 research papers indexed in the Web of Science database. Different bibliometrics indicators were used to assess the annual research growth, prolific authors, authorship pattern, funding agencies, productive source, organization, country, author keywords, cited paper and cited references, etc. Biblioshiny, Bibexcel, VOSviewer, and MS Office were used to analyze the 629 published papers. The findings show that 629 publications were published between 1980 and 2001, with 24674 citations. 2018 and 2019 recorded the highest research with 49 publications and 758 and 471 citations, respectively. Journal of Controlled Release was the most relevant source in the field, with 45 publications and 3063 citations. LIU Y was the most productive author, with 15 publications and 342 citations. Northwestern University USA has the highest record with 11 publications, and the USA was the most productive country with 181 publications, while China emerged as a leading collaborator with the USA (19 publications). Liposomes and cationic liposomes were identified as the most important research themes. Permeability, ocular drug delivery, Chemotherapy, Cancer therapy, Hypoxia, Combination therapy, and hyaluronic acid were research topics that had gained recent popularity. At the same time, Vesicles targeted drug delivery, cellular uptake, ultrasound, Chitosan, and Pegylation were identified as the research areas that require further attention in the field of liposomes as drug delivery research.