Intellectual Structure of Knowledge in Nanomedicine Field (2009 To 2018): A Co-Word ‎Analysis

Introduction: the co-word analysis has the ability to identify the intellectual structure of knowledge ‎in a research domain and reveal its subsurface research aspects.‎objective: this study examines the intellectual structure of knowledge in the field of nanomedicine ‎during the period of 2009 to 2018 by using co-word analysis.‎materials and methods: this paper develops a scientometric approach about nanomedicine over a data ‎set of 2,798 documents published over a period of 10 years (2009–2018) on pubmed databases. the ‎data was analyzed using co-word, clustering methods and strategic diagram assisted by spss, ucinet, ‎and vos viewer software.‎result: the top journal that published papers on the field was nanomedicine (london, england). the ‎results showed that the keyword nanoparticles and two pairs of frequently-used keywords namely ‎‏‏drug delivery systems ‎‏*‏‎ nanoparticles‏‏‎ were the most frequent in the field of nanomedicine. ‎application of hierarchical clustering led to the formation of 9 clusters. the cluster drug delivery ‎system (emphasis on cancer) is the core cluster and plays an effective role. the other clusters like ‎‎nano diagnostic, drug design and renovated medicine are in marginal.‎conclusion: this study represented that co-word analysis can well illustrate the intellectual structure ‎of an area. the frequency of keywords as well as formed clusters demonstrate that the majority of ‎research approaches include pharmaceutical nanotechnology. despite the importance of other aspects ‎as well as nanosafety/ nanotoxicology and new medical products and equipment such as nanorobots ‎have not been considered.‎