A decennial study of the trend of antibiotic studies in China

Abstract

Antibiotics are one of the greatest inventions in human history and are used worldwide on an enormous scale. Besides its extensive usage in medical and veterinary arenas to treat and prevent the infection, its application is very prominent in other elds, including agriculture, aquaculture, and horticulture. In recent decades, the increased consumption of antibiotics in China saw a vast increase in its production and disposal in various environments. However, in this post-antibiotic era, the abuse and misuse of these valuable compounds could lead to the unreversible consequence of drug resistance. In China, antibiotics are given a broad discussion in various elds to reveal their impact on both human/animals health and the environment. To our knowledge, we are the rst paper to look back at the development trend of antibiotic-related studies in China with qualitative and quantitative bibliometric analysis from the past decades. Our study identi ed and analysed 5559 papers from its inception (1991) to December 6, 2021, from the Web of Science Core Collection database. However, with few authors and institutions focusing on long term studies, we found the quality of contributions were uneven. Studies mainly focused on areas such as food science, clinical research, and environmental studies, including Molecular biology, genetics and environmental, ecotoxicology, and nutrition, which indicate possible primary future trends. Our study reports on including potentially new keywords, studies' milestones, and their contribution to antibiotic research. We offer potential topics that may be important in upcoming years that could help guide future research.

The Occurrence, Distribution, Environmental Effects, and Interactions of Microplastics and Antibiotics in the Aquatic Environment of China

“…Worldwide, ATs are used in more than 100,000 tons per year and have gained increasing interest in recent years as an emerging pollutant [14]. ATs are antimicrobial drugs that interfere with the developmental functions of bacteria and are widely used in the livestock, medical, and aquaculture industries [15]. Most ATs are not completely absorbed and degraded by organisms upon entry, and approximately 5-90% of ATs are released to soil and water as prototypes or metabolites [16].…”