A scientometric review of hydrogel-based ocular drug delivery systems

Abstract The delivery of the drugs to the internal structures, especially the posterior segment of the eye, offers a great challenge for doctors. There has been a growing interest in the field of developing novel drug delivery systems. Hydrogel-based delivery systems have been found to improve drug bioavailability significantly and have been explored extensively. Hence, it becomes customary to have an overview of the research status and gaps in the field of ocular drug delivery. In this paper, the scientometric analysis was employed so as to have an understanding of the recent research activities and scientific trends. Herein, the documents from the Scopus database was searched. Only the research papers were involved in the study. A year-on-year research publication status was scanned, which suggested an exponential increase in the research on hydrogel-based ocular drug delivery systems in the recent past. The scientometric analysis was carried out using Vosviewer software. Citation-based analysis of the countries, organizations, authors, and their co-operation network were analyzed. Further, co-occurrence analysis suggested that nanoparticulate/nanocarrier and contact lens-mediated ocular drug delivery are most preferred. However, the research seems to be in its early stage as compared to the other field of drug delivery systems.