{"id":13,"asset_id":"82","title":"PubMed research trends (hidradenitis suppurativa)","alias":"pubmed-research-trends-hidradenitis-suppurativa","introtext":"<p>My dream that researchers will find a cure for Hidradenitis Suppurativa lives somewhere between a delayed excitement with current advances in medical\/biological technologies and a recent exercise in naive data extrapolation.<\/p>\r\n","fulltext":"\r\n<p>People who know me well are very much aware of my focused interest and passion for a little known skin disease named <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aad.org\/dermatology-a-to-z\/diseases-and-treatments\/e---h\/hidradenitis-suppurativa\" target=\"_blank\">Hidradenitis Supurativa (HS)<\/a>, which is also known as Acne Inversa. I spend a good bit of my free time reading information on HS in the public domain; starting conversations with patients, doctors, and scientists; and stumbling through the peer-reviewed literature with hopes that some day my influence may contribute toward advancing the prognosis of HS patients. As it stands today, HS is regarded as a chronic illness that is painful, disabling, ill-understood (no agreed-upon mechanism), and has no known cure. If I could have a single wish granted (aside from personal health and immortality), it would surely be for the eradication of HS \u2014 a monster that affects my favorite person.<\/p>\r\n<p>As I have done periodically for a little over a year, I was just working on updating my catalog of HS publications this evening. In my typical systematic and procedural approach, I was set out to pull down references before finding full-text PDFs from a few choice databases with my standard set of search queries. The fun began with the first query for ( \"hidradenitis\" OR \"suppurativa\" ) AND \"20&lt;nn&gt;\" that returns a liberal collection of all HS publications by year.<\/p>\r\n<p>The results from the first query targeting the current year (2015) revealed 169 results! The year hasn't quite ended yet, and this number of search hits is notably higher than any year in the past decade. My curiosity kicked in immediately and my inner number nerd easily found a new manifestation in this otherwise mundane research maintenance task.<\/p>\r\n<p>As I commenced my trip down an investigative rabbit-hole, subsequent queries for preceding years returned fewer results. All the way down to 2010, the decrease was monotonic and seemingly substantial. I kept going back in time through 2005 while noticing the same phenomenon. Finally by the years 2004, 2003, and down into 2000, the decreasing trend had broken. If not for the late hour and my fading motivation (laziness), I'd have continued the historical descent further and further until some plateau became undeniably evident.<\/p>\r\n<p>Here's where the real fun could begin. What good is a list of sequential data if not depicted in (at least) a simple visualization? A quick copy and paste of this information into spreadsheet allowed for a simple scatter plot that shows an interesting apparent trend. Crude and naive visual inspection of the plot shows what looks like a possible exponential increase in the popularity of HS research in PubMed throughout the past decade!<\/p>\r\n<figure class=\"pull-center\"><img title=\"PubMed hits on HS versus time\" src=\"images\/nlm_pubmed_search_hits_on_hs_plot_exp.png\" alt=\"\" \/><figcaption>Number of publications matching the search query \"hidradenitis OR suppurativa\" from PubMed by publication year.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n<p>I know, I know, I know that it isn't proper to imply inferences from an ad-hoc and hasty \"data analysis\" exercise such as this, but my emotions just can't help but bias my rational integrity with innocent optimism that supports my grandest dreams. I just can't help but imagine a reality in which this indicates a trend of exponentially increasing HS research results... and ultimately a cure for this disease!<\/p>","state":1,"catid":"9","created":"2015-11-06 08:15:48","created_by":"432","created_by_alias":"","modified":"2015-11-17 05:38:21","modified_by":"431","checked_out":"431","checked_out_time":"2015-11-17 05:38:01","publish_up":"2015-11-06 08:15:48","publish_down":"0000-00-00 00:00:00","images":"{\"image_intro\":\"images\\\/nlm_pubmed_search_hits_on_hs_plot_exp.png\",\"float_intro\":\"\",\"image_intro_alt\":\"\",\"image_intro_caption\":\"\",\"image_fulltext\":\"\",\"float_fulltext\":\"\",\"image_fulltext_alt\":\"\",\"image_fulltext_caption\":\"\"}","urls":"{\"urla\":false,\"urlatext\":\"\",\"targeta\":\"\",\"urlb\":false,\"urlbtext\":\"\",\"targetb\":\"\",\"urlc\":false,\"urlctext\":\"\",\"targetc\":\"\"}","attribs":"{\"show_title\":\"\",\"link_titles\":\"\",\"show_tags\":\"\",\"show_intro\":\"\",\"info_block_position\":\"\",\"show_category\":\"\",\"link_category\":\"\",\"show_parent_category\":\"\",\"link_parent_category\":\"\",\"show_author\":\"\",\"link_author\":\"\",\"show_create_date\":\"\",\"show_modify_date\":\"\",\"show_publish_date\":\"\",\"show_item_navigation\":\"\",\"show_icons\":\"\",\"show_print_icon\":\"\",\"show_email_icon\":\"\",\"show_vote\":\"\",\"show_hits\":\"\",\"show_noauth\":\"\",\"urls_position\":\"\",\"alternative_readmore\":\"\",\"article_layout\":\"\",\"show_publishing_options\":\"\",\"show_article_options\":\"\",\"show_urls_images_backend\":\"\",\"show_urls_images_frontend\":\"\"}","version":7,"ordering":"0","metakey":"hidradenitis, suppurativa, cure, medical, medicine, research, pubmed, nlm, biological, science","metadesc":"My dream that researchers will find a cure for Hidradenitis Suppurativa lives somewhere between a delayed excitement with current advances in medical\/biological technologies and a recent exercise in naive data extrapolation.","access":"1","hits":"33","metadata":"{\"robots\":\"\",\"author\":\"\",\"rights\":\"\",\"xreference\":\"\"}","featured":"0","language":"*","xreference":""}