100 most cited articles in fracture surgery

Area of Science:

• Orthopedic Surgery
• Bibliometrics

Background:

• Citation density is a key metric for assessing research impact in scientific fields.
• Identifying highly cited articles provides insight into a field's foundational and influential works.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify and characterize the 100 most cited articles specifically within the field of fracture surgery.
• To analyze trends in publication, evidence level, and research focus among these influential articles.

Main Methods:

• Utilized the ISI Web of Science's cited reference search to identify top-cited articles in orthopedic surgery.
• Employed multiple reviewers to filter for articles exclusively on fracture surgery.
• Characterized selected articles by publication decade, study design, evidence level, and citation density.

Main Results:

• The top 100 fracture surgery articles were predominantly published in English (100%), with 69% originating from the United States.
• Sixty-six percent of the articles were clinical research, and the most frequent topic was hip fractures (12%).
• Over half of the clinical articles were classified as Level IV evidence, and evidence level showed a negative correlation with publication date.

Conclusions:

• Citation analysis is valuable for understanding historical and current trends in fracture surgery.
• The findings highlight the characteristics of impactful research in fracture surgery, aiding practitioners and researchers.
• Further investigation can build upon this foundation to explore specific research trajectories and their impact.