## 4 Discussion  
Bibliometric analysis allows for a quantitative, systematic, and objective assessment on the publications in a field, which helps researchers to have an understanding about the past and current state of the field as well as a holistic insight on its future direction [6; 7; 10]. Among the earliest topics for the bibliometric analyses was forensic science where the publications of diverse subdisciplines of forensic science in Europe were examined [13; 14]. The establishment of digital journal archives (e.g., Scopus, Web of Science, and PubMed) and development of computer software that can analyze the archived data (e.g., VOSviewer) makes the process of bibliometric analysis straightforward and time-efficient. Thus, recent years have seen increasing bibliometric analyses in various fields, e.g., [6; 7; 15; 16]. One of the notable findings in the current study is the rapid increase in the number of articles, particularly since the early 2000s (Table 1). In 2003, [PERSON] and colleagues [4] emphasized and encouraged the utility of imaging techniques such as CT and MRI in the field of forensic science. Interestingly, this year was the first year during which more than ten CT-related forensic articles were published (\(n=11\)), and the increasing trend has continued except for 2005, 2014, and 2018. The AGR has fluctuated between 2000 and 2019; however, except for 2001, 2005, and 2018, there were no years with negative AGRs. In other words, the number of publications for most of the past 20 years exceeded (or was the same as) that of the preceding year (Table 1). In 2017, the number of annual publications exceeded 200 for the first time (\(n=202\)) and the increasing trend is likely to continue in 2020 as well (\(n=211\) as of 4 November 2020). Switzerland and United States ranked first and second in both the number of publications (\(n=335\) and \(n=259\), respectively) and citations (\(n=6662\) and \(n=4775\), respectively) (Table 2). Japan ranked third in the number of publications (\(n=224\)), but Germany ranked third in terms of the number of citations (\(n=3534\)). Cluster analysis in Figure 3 shows which countries have close collaborative relationships. [PERSON] et al. [6] state that geographic location is an important factor in terms of collaborations between countries. However, the result of the current study did not show a clear relationship between the geographic locations and collaborative network of the countries. For example, eight European countries in Figure 3 were divided into four different clusters, and China and France were in the same cluster. It is beyond the scope of the current study to investigate the underlying factors affecting the international collaborations, but it would be a significant topic for future research. The leading role of Switzerland in the CT-related forensic studies was also evident in the list of most productive institutions (Table 4). Six out of 16 institutions in Table 4, including the top three institutions, are located in Switzerland. Moreover, approximately 23.8% of the articles (496 out of 2084) have been produced by these six Swiss institutions. The rest of the institutions are located in Australia, China, France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom. Interestingly, any institutions from the United States or Italy, which ranked second and sixth in the number of publications, were not listed in Table 4. This is possibly because the large number of publications in the United States (\(n=259\)) and Italy (\(n=173\)) have been produced by diverse research groups rather than by a small number of leading groups. Approximately 43.6% of the CT-related forensic studies (909 out of 2084 articles) have been published in five journals (Forensic Science International, International Journal of Legal Medicine, Journal of Forensic Radiology and Imaging, Journal of Forensic Sciences, and Legal Medicine) with the total number of citations of 13,836 (Table 5).