The Chiari Malformations: A Bibliometric Analysis of the 100 Most Cited Articles

The Chiari malformations present heterogeneous entities, raising many questions regarding their natural history, pathophysiology, treatment options, and prognosis. Bibliometric analyses have emerged as a method to assess the impact of articles in current clinical practice.

The most cited articles were identified via Scopus Library by using the keywords "Chiari," "Arnold-Chiari," and "Chiari malformation." The 100 most cited articles were then assembled and analyzed in detail.

The top 100 articles yielded a mean of 155,28 citations per article, ranging from 87 to 896 citations, and from 1.63 to 38.96 per year. Years of publications ranged from 1950 to 2015. Oakes was the most cited author (n = 7), followed by Tubbs and Milhorat. The country with the highest cited articles was the United States (n = 63), followed by the United Kingdom (n = 6), Italy (n = 5), Spain (n = 5), Japan (n = 4), and Germany (n = 3). Neurosurgery is the journal with the most highly cited articles (n = 21), followed by Journal of Neurosurgery (n = 19). Most articles focused on Chiari malformation type I (n = 83). The topic discussed most often was imaging (n = 63), followed by the evaluation of treatment outcome (n = 58), clinical signs and symptoms (n = 57), and the role of surgery (n = 56).

The present bibliometric analysis provides a succinct appraisal of the most cited articles concerning Chiari malformation, allowing a deeper insight in this area and its main influential articles with their impact on current clinical practice and future research.