Forensic Phytochemistry: A Bibliometric Analysis of Analytical Methods for Plant Toxin Detection (2016–2026)
International Journal of Medical Toxicology and Forensic Medicine,
Vol. 16 (2026),
1 January 2026
,
Page 1-7
https://doi.org/10.22037/ijmtfm.v16.53293
Abstract
Background: Plant toxins cause accidental, occupational, food-borne, and deliberate poisoning, and ricin and abrin are recognized forensic threat agents. Because they occur as trace-level mixtures in difficult matrices, progress depends on analytical capability. This study maps a decade of detection research.
Methods: A cross-sectional bibliometric analysis of 305 English-language articles indexed in Scopus between 2016 and 2026, retrieved on 28 August 2026. Indicators were computed in bibliometrix/Biblioshiny, keyword co-occurrence mapped in VOSviewer, and analytical platform, toxin class, matrix, and orientation coded in Python.
Results: The corpus comprised 305 articles from 163 sources and 1,683 authors in 63 countries, with 4,261 citations (mean 13.97; h-index 34). Output rose from 19 articles in 2016 to 49 in 2025 (R²=0.436, P=0.038). Chromatography dominated: liquid chromatography 37.4%, tandem mass spectrometry 33.1%, high-resolution mass spectrometry 14.1%; metabolomics showed the largest proportional increase, from 2.5% in 2016–2020 to 8.6% in 2021–2026. Keyword mapping resolved four clusters, separating clinical poisoning from analytical, omics-based, and agronomic strands. Food matrices appeared in 33.4% of articles, human clinical specimens in 15.1%, and forensic casework in 10.5%; method validation was the most common orientation (25.6%), and risk assessment the rarest (11.5%). Europe accounted for 43.3% of country appearances, compared with 3.4% from sub-Saharan Africa.
Conclusion: Detection capability is advancing faster than its clinical, forensic, and risk-assessment applications. Priorities are forensic reference libraries for botanical toxins, published poison-center and autopsy case series, and analytical capacity where the poisoning burden is greatest.
- Plant poisoning, Bibliometrics, Forensic toxicology, Mass spectrometry, Food safety
How to Cite
References
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