Characteristics of highly cited articles in cerebral angiography

ObjectiveTo present and analyze the characteristics of the 100 most cited articles that used cerebral angiography for clinical evaluation and intervention.MethodTwo researchers independently extracted articles from multiple databases and ranked them by citation count to create the "top 100 most-cited" list.ResultsThe top 100 articles received a total of 115,243 citations. Twenty-one of the top 100 articles were published between 2006 and 2010. Most studied disorder was ischemic stroke (n = 35), and cerebral angiography was used most frequently for diagnosis (n = 88).The United States was affiliated with the highest number of articles (n = 62), with Stroke publishing most articles (n = 22). Public sources funded 39 articles, private sources funded 35, and 38 articles reported conflicts of interest. Thirty-six studies were randomized controlled trials, and male authors held the majority of both first (n = 90) and senior (n = 88) authorship positions.ConclusionWithin the scope of this study, the following features may define a typical highly cited article-a randomized controlled clinical trial conducted in the United States that studied ischemic stroke, used cerebral angiography for diagnosis, and was published relatively recently in a high-impact journal by male first and senior authors.