SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Radiation Oncology
Natural Medicines for Radioprotection and Radiosensitization: A Bibliometric Analysis of Mechanisms and Trends (2001–2025)
1. Air Force General Hospital PLA, Beijing, China
2. Air Force Medical University, Xi'An, China
3. Universitatsklinikum Erlangen, Erlangen, Germany
4. Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing, China
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Abstract
Background: Ionizing radiation (IR) poses a global health threat, inducing molecular damage and chronic issues. Despite its significance, there has been limited bibliometric analysis to systematically evaluate the status, hotspots, and trends in the field of natural medicines (NMs) against IR. Purpose: To comprehensively understand the status, hotspots, and trends in the field of NMs against IR. Methods: Documents concerning NMs against IR were extracted from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) and PubMed databases. The literature analysis was conducted using VOSviewer 1.6.17 and CiteSpace 6.1.R6 software. Results: In total, 450 publications were encompassed. The most productive author was Baliga MS (19 documents) and Father Muller Medical College (11 documents, 688 citations); dominant countries were India (148 documents) and Peoples R China (99 documents); and a top journal was J Ethnopharmacol (615 citations). The first high-cited article was "Protection against Ionizing Radiation by Antioxidant Nutrients and Phytochemicals" by Weiss, JF (2003) with 459 citations. Oxidative stress, DNA damage, apoptosis, and radioprotection were identified as core research themes. Conclusion: Currently, the main hotspot is the elucidation of cellular and molecular mechanisms using novel technologies such as network pharmacology, molecular docking, and experimental validation. Future studies are needed to focus on the inherent molecular mechanisms and clinical applications. In addition, potential side effects of the bioactive compounds cannot be ignored.
Summary
Keywords
bibliometric analysis, Ionizing radiation, Molecular mechanisms, Natural medicines, radioprotection, radiosensitization
Received
21 January 2026
Accepted
12 February 2026
Copyright
© 2026 Di, Song, Wang, Meng and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Yupeng Di
Disclaimer
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