A bibliometric analysis of the 100 most cited articles on pulp vitality devices

Scientific articles have doubled in number during the past few years, and the number of publications has continuously increased over time. The purpose of this bibliometric analysis was to identify and analyse the top 100 most cited articles published on pulp vitality devices between 1965 and 2024.

The 100 most-cited scientific papers on pulp vitality devices were searched and analysed using Elsevier's Scopus database. The search used the keywords "Dental Pulp Test," "Pulp Vitality Testing," and "Pulp Vitality Devices," with no restrictions on publication date, language, or status. A total of 1,005 articles were retrieved, and all were organized in descending order based on citation count. The articles were ordered in descending order depending on their citation counts after the screening procedure was completed by two independent reviewers. These papers were then cross matched with citations harvested from Google Scholar. The publications were examined, and data such as citation counts, citation density, publication year, authorship, contributing institutions, countries, article topic, study design and keywords were extracted. Using the Visualization of Similarities programme (VOSviewer, version 1.6.13; Leiden University Centre for Science and Technology Studies, Netherlands) collaboration networks were created between authors, nations, and keywords.

The literature search identified 1005 articles. Citation counts of the top 100 articles were selected. The most-cited article received 169 total citations in Scopus and 345 citations in Google Scholar. The years 1996 and 2002 had the highest number of publications among the top 100 articles (n = 6). The articles obtained in the search were published in 28 journals, with the Journal of Endodontics contributing the maximum number of articles (n = 31). 318 were the most frequently published authors. The 100 most cited articles on pulp vitality tests originated from 22 different countries. The most common keywords used were "dental pulp test", "tooth pulp disease", laser doppler flowmetry (LDF).

This study illustrates the advancement, communication and research areas in the fields of pulp vitality devices, thereby predicting potential future research directions. The Journal of Endodontics, Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology, International Endodontic Journal, and Dental Traumatology were the four main journals in terms of production volume, USA being the most productive country. Among the most-cited articles, randomised clinical trials, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses were rare.