Global scientific trends on portal hypertension and cirrhosis in the 21st century: A bibliometric and visualized analysis

To the Editor, Cirrhosis develops histologically as regenerative nod-ules surrounded by fibrous bands because of chronic liver injury,resulting in portal hypertension and end-stage liver failure.Liver cirrhosis imposes a heavy health and economic burden on many countries.In 2014,Mokdad et al.1 reported the results of the 2010 Global Burden of Disease Study(GBD).Global deaths from cirrhosis increased monotonically from just over 676,000 deaths in 1980(1.54％of global deaths)to more than 1 million deaths in 2010,or 1.95％.Portal hypertension is a group of disorders characterized by symptoms,such as hepatic encephalopathy.Cirrhosis is the main cause of portal hypertension,accounting for 80％-90％of cases.In addition,cirrhosis has fatal complications that greatly affect the quality of life of patients.