Global research interest regarding silver diamine fluoride in dentistry: A bibliometric analysis

•Bibliometric analyses are rarely performed in dentistry.•They can help in identifying emerging and promising research topics.•Global research interest regarding SDF has rapidly increased in recent years.•The findings will inspire dentists and researchers in the novel approach of SDF treatment. This study aimed to investigate the global research interest regarding silver diamine fluoride (SDF) in dentistry using a bibliometric approach. A literature search was conducted in the Web of Science Core Collection database to identify studies related to SDF. Bibliometric data from the selected publications were exported and analysed using the Bibliometrix Biblioshiny R-package software. The type of research and main contents of the publications were summarised. One-way analysis of variance was used to detect the differences in the citation counts of the publications with various types of research. In addition, Google Trends was used to investigate the popularity of the search term “silver diamine fluoride”. A total of 259 publications were included and analyzed. The annual scientific production of SDF studies increased significantly per year in the past five years, and it mainly concerned dental caries. The three main types of research were laboratory/animal study (n = 114, 44%), review/guideline (n = 56, 22%), and clinical trial (n = 44, 17%). The citation count related to the type of research (p