Current trends in chitosan-related research in the biomedical field: A short review

Chitosan is a derivative of the naturally-occurring polysaccharide chitin. Both have been extensively studied in the past thirty five years with an observable increase in interest occurring since the turn of the century, reflected by the increased number of publications based on chitosan research and also the development of international bodies such as the American Journal of Chitin and Chitosan Science (2000-2016) [1] and the European Chitin Society who held their first international conference in 1996 [2]. Statistical analysis carried out on the number of publications containing the word 'chitosan' on Science Direct also shows that there has been a dramatic increase in chitosan research in the past 16 years as compared to the years previous; a total of 4613 publications were published between 1940 and 2000 compared to a total of 41295 publications published since then [3]. This review article contains a statistical analysis on the principal search terms related to chitosan on Science Direct over the past ten years, with respect to both growing and declining areas. Although chitosan and its analogues have been proposed and in some cases accepted as a material for certain biomedical applications the question is whether there has been sufficient advances in the chemistry and materials science associated with chitosan to be able to clearly identify chitosan as an important material for future applications, from both an industrial and general public perspective. This review article surveys the literature in an attempt to provide an informed answer to this question.