Trends in prenatal diagnosis: An analysis of 40 years of Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) terms in publications

Objective To understand the evolution of the field of prenatal diagnosis over the past four decades. Method We analyzed the publications in the journal Prenatal Diagnosis from its inception in 1980 to 2019 using Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) to examine the major research topics and trends. The res...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Prenatal diagnosis Vol. 40; no. 13; pp. 1636 - 1640
Main Authors: Lu, Ya‐Ling, Bianchi, Diana W.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Chichester, UK John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 01.12.2020
Subjects:
Abstracting and Indexing - methods
Abstracting and Indexing - standards
Abstracting and Indexing - trends
Bibliometrics
Female
Humans
Medical Subject Headings
Noninvasive Prenatal Testing - trends
Periodicals as Topic - trends
Pregnancy
Prenatal Diagnosis - methods
Prenatal Diagnosis - trends
ISSN:0197-3851, 1097-0223, 1097-0223
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Objective To understand the evolution of the field of prenatal diagnosis over the past four decades. Method We analyzed the publications in the journal Prenatal Diagnosis from its inception in 1980 to 2019 using Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) to examine the major research topics and trends. The results were analyzed by 10‐year intervals. Results Publications on prenatal cytogenetics, congenital anomalies and fetal imaging predominated during the first three decades, with a steady increase in molecular genetics over time. Publications on NIPT did not appear until the most recent decade and are likely under‐counted because there was no MeSH term for NIPT until 2020. Conclusion The topics covered in Prenatal Diagnosis articles have evolved considerably over the past four decades and reflect a response to advances in technology and widespread incorporation of prenatal screening and diagnosis into standard obstetric care. The strengths of this analysis are its objective nature, its use of the standard MeSH terms used for coding, and application of a novel cluster analysis to visualize trends. The analysis also pointed out the fact that MeSH terms in this sub‐specialty area are often inconsistent due to manually coding based on individual subject matter expertise.
Bibliography:Funding information
NIH Intramural program, Grant/Award Number: HG200400‐03
ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
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ISSN:0197-3851
1097-0223
1097-0223
DOI:10.1002/pd.5871