{"PubmedArticle":{"MedlineCitation":{"@attributes":{"Status":"Publisher","Owner":"NLM"},"PMID":{"@attributes":{"Version":"1"},"@text":"41965962"},"DateRevised":{"Year":"2026","Month":"04","Day":"12"},"Article":{"@attributes":{"PubModel":"Print-Electronic"},"Journal":{"ISSN":{"@attributes":{"IssnType":"Electronic"},"@text":"1878-7487"},"JournalIssue":{"@attributes":{"CitedMedium":"Internet"},"Volume":"120","PubDate":{"Year":"2026","Month":"Apr","Day":"04"}},"Title":"Journal of forensic and legal medicine","ISOAbbreviation":"J Forensic Leg Med"},"ArticleTitle":"Mapping 25 years of forensic and legal medicine research: a multi-database bibliometric and science-mapping analysis (2000-2025).","Pagination":{"StartPage":"103127","MedlinePgn":"103127"},"ELocationID":[{"@attributes":{"EIdType":"doi","ValidYN":"Y"},"@text":"10.1016\/j.jflm.2026.103127"},{"@attributes":{"EIdType":"pii","ValidYN":"Y"},"@text":"S1752-928X(26)00059-4"}],"Abstract":{"AbstractText":[{"@attributes":{"Label":"BACKGROUND","NlmCategory":"BACKGROUND"},"@text":"Forensic and legal medicine spans forensic pathology, clinical forensic practice, toxicology, genetics, imaging, and emerging digital methods. Long-horizon mapping can support research prioritisation and editorial strategy."},{"@attributes":{"Label":"METHODS","NlmCategory":"METHODS"},"@text":"We conducted performance analysis and science-mapping of records published between 2000 and 2025. Primary analyses were performed on Web of Science Core Collection records (articles and reviews) using bibliometrix\/biblioshiny. Outputs included annual production, leading sources and countries, citation indicators, collaboration metrics, keyword co-occurrence, Callon centrality-density thematic mapping, and trend-topic analysis. A conservative, prespecified keyword harmonisation was applied to a small set of orthographic variants (medico-legal, postmortem, machine learning, deep learning). Scopus-derived outputs were used as a robustness comparison for source and country landscapes."},{"@attributes":{"Label":"RESULTS","NlmCategory":"RESULTS"},"@text":"The WoS corpus comprised 16,190 documents from 3052 sources with 49,746 distinct authors and 372,874 cited references. Annual growth was 7.68%, with 5.07 co-authors per document and 13.38% international co-authorship. Output was concentrated in a compact Bradford nucleus of specialist forensic journals, while a long tail of occasional publications appeared in adjacent clinical and multidisciplinary venues. Thematic mapping identified four macro-domains-identification, risk\/epidemiology, autopsy\/postmortem pathology, and clinical forensic practice-with recent growth in COVID-19-related work, postmortem interval research, and AI\/ML terminology."},{"@attributes":{"Label":"CONCLUSIONS","NlmCategory":"CONCLUSIONS"},"@text":"Forensic and legal medicine shows sustained growth with a stable conceptual backbone and accelerating innovation in digital and computational themes. These maps can inform research prioritisation, training needs, and editorial planning across specialist forensic outlets."}],"CopyrightInformation":"Copyright \u00a9 2026 Elsevier Ltd and Faculty of Forensic and Legal Medicine. All rights reserved."},"AuthorList":{"@attributes":{"CompleteYN":"Y"},"Author":[{"@attributes":{"ValidYN":"Y"},"LastName":"Sirago","ForeName":"Gianmarco","Initials":"G","AffiliationInfo":[{"Affiliation":"University of Bari Aldo Moro, Policlinico of Bari, Bari, Italy. Electronic address: gianmarco.sirago@uniba.it."}]},{"@attributes":{"ValidYN":"Y"},"LastName":"Solarino","ForeName":"Biagio","Initials":"B","AffiliationInfo":[{"Affiliation":"University of Bari Aldo Moro, Policlinico of Bari, Bari, Italy."}]},{"@attributes":{"ValidYN":"Y"},"LastName":"Dell'Erba","ForeName":"Alessandro","Initials":"A","AffiliationInfo":[{"Affiliation":"University of Bari Aldo Moro, Policlinico of Bari, Bari, Italy."}]},{"@attributes":{"ValidYN":"Y"},"LastName":"Ferorelli","ForeName":"Davide","Initials":"D","AffiliationInfo":[{"Affiliation":"University of Bari Aldo Moro, Policlinico of Bari, Bari, Italy."}]}]},"Language":["eng"],"PublicationTypeList":{"PublicationType":[{"@attributes":{"UI":"D016428"},"@text":"Journal Article"},{"@attributes":{"UI":"D016454"},"@text":"Review"}]},"ArticleDate":[{"@attributes":{"DateType":"Electronic"},"Year":"2026","Month":"04","Day":"04"}]},"MedlineJournalInfo":{"Country":"England","MedlineTA":"J Forensic Leg Med","NlmUniqueID":"101300022","ISSNLinking":"1752-928X"},"CitationSubset":["IM"],"KeywordList":[{"@attributes":{"Owner":"NOTNLM"},"Keyword":[{"@attributes":{"MajorTopicYN":"N"},"@text":"Bibliometrics"},{"@attributes":{"MajorTopicYN":"N"},"@text":"Forensic medicine"},{"@attributes":{"MajorTopicYN":"N"},"@text":"Legal medicine"},{"@attributes":{"MajorTopicYN":"N"},"@text":"Science-mapping"},{"@attributes":{"MajorTopicYN":"N"},"@text":"Scopus"},{"@attributes":{"MajorTopicYN":"N"},"@text":"Web of science"}]}],"CoiStatement":"Declaration of interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper."},"PubmedData":{"History":{"PubMedPubDate":[{"@attributes":{"PubStatus":"received"},"Year":"2026","Month":"2","Day":"24"},{"@attributes":{"PubStatus":"revised"},"Year":"2026","Month":"4","Day":"3"},{"@attributes":{"PubStatus":"accepted"},"Year":"2026","Month":"4","Day":"3"},{"@attributes":{"PubStatus":"medline"},"Year":"2026","Month":"4","Day":"12","Hour":"6","Minute":"38"},{"@attributes":{"PubStatus":"pubmed"},"Year":"2026","Month":"4","Day":"12","Hour":"6","Minute":"38"},{"@attributes":{"PubStatus":"entrez"},"Year":"2026","Month":"4","Day":"12","Hour":"0","Minute":"26"}]},"PublicationStatus":"aheadofprint","ArticleIdList":{"ArticleId":[{"@attributes":{"IdType":"pubmed"},"@text":"41965962"},{"@attributes":{"IdType":"doi"},"@text":"10.1016\/j.jflm.2026.103127"},{"@attributes":{"IdType":"pii"},"@text":"S1752-928X(26)00059-4"}]}}}}