The 50 Most Cited Articles in Knee Medial Collateral Ligament Injury Research

Medial collateral ligament (MCL) injury is a common orthopaedic knee injury with a plethora of published articles regarding evaluation, treatment, and outcome.

To perform a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of the 50 most cited articles in MCL research.

Cross-sectional study.

We performed a keyword search of the Institute for Scientific Information's Web of Knowledge database for the identification of articles published before September 2021 encompassing the MCL. The conducted search yielded 9534 articles. The results were then filtered using predetermined guidelines and criteria, and the 50 most cited articles were selected for analysis. Extracted data included title, authors, citation count, year of publication, topic, journal, article type, country of origin, and level of evidence.

The selected 50 articles ranged from 1976 to 2013. The largest proportion was classified as having level 4 evidence (n = 12; 24%). The majority of the articles were published in the decade from 2000 to 2009 (n = 17; 34%), followed by 1990 to 1999 (n = 16; 32%). The mean raw citation score per article was 133 (range, 74-422). The most popular topic discussed was surgical technique and outcome (n = 14; 28%), followed by anatomy and biomechanics (n = 13; 26%).

This study provides a comprehensive and objective measure of the most cited articles on MCL research. Knowledge of the characteristics of these most influential articles improves the understanding of MCL injury and can guide discussion for future research.