The 100 most-cited articles in Pediatric Surgery International

Citation analysis within specific journals and subject areas has become a popular method to assess the impact of a journal, article or author. To date, only a few evaluations of citation reports have been published in the field of pediatric surgery. Twenty-six years after its inception, Pediatric Surgery International (PSI) is a firmly established journal in pediatric surgery. The aim of this study was to identify, analyze and categorize the characteristics of the 100 most-cited articles published in PSI since its founding in 1986.

The Web of Knowledge(SM), hosted by the Institute for Scientific Information, was searched with the all-database function for the 100 most-cited articles in PSI published from 1986 to the present. Each article was reviewed and the following parameters were recorded: number of citations, type of article, topic, year of publication, country of origin, institution and authorship.

Between 1986 and 2012, 4,907 articles were published in PSI and 3,608 (73.53 %) of these were cited at least once. The 100 most-cited articles received a total of 3,309 citations with a mean of 33.09 (range 24-81). These articles were published between 1987 and 2007, with 73 articles published after 1997. Leading countries were USA (n = 15), Australia (n = 12), UK (n = 9) and Ireland (n = 9). Articles were categorized as followed: 92 original articles, 5 reviews and 3 case reports. 84 articles derived from clinical research and 16 derived from basic science. The most prolific authors were from 7 different institutions and published 37 articles, which received 1,213 (36.66 %) citations.

The 100 most-cited articles published in PSI were predominately original articles from English-speaking countries dealing with clinical topics. This analysis may be of value to the editorial board and authors by providing some insights into what types of manuscripts appear to be of interest to the reading audience of PSI.