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100 Most Cited Articles in Orthopaedic Surgery

  • Survey
  • Published:
Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research®

Abstract

Background

Citation analysis reflects the recognition a work has received in the scientific community by its peers, and is a common method to determine ‘classic’ works in medical specialties.

Questions/purposes

We determined which published articles in orthopaedic journals have been most cited by other authors by ranking the 100 top-cited works. By analyzing characteristics of these articles, we intended to determine what qualities make an orthopaedic article important to the specialty. Finally, we determined if there was a change in level of evidence of studies on this list with time.

Methods

Science Citation Index Expanded was searched for citations to articles published in any of the 49 journals in the subject category “ORTHOPEDICS.” Each of the 49 journals was searched separately using the “cited reference search” to determine the 100 most often cited articles. Each article was reviewed for basic information including year of publication, country of origin, source journal of the article, article type, and level of evidence. We categorized the journal article by field of research where possible.

Results

The number of citations ranged from 1748 to 353. The 100 most often cited articles in orthopaedic surgery were published in 11 of the 49 journals, spanning from general to more specific subspecialty journals. The majority of the papers (76) were clinical, with the remaining representing some type of basic science research. The most common level of evidence was IV (42 of the 76 studies). Of the 76 clinical articles, 27 introduced or tested classification systems or outcome measurement tools.

Conclusions

Authors aiming to write a highly cited article in an orthopaedic surgery journal will be favored by language of publication, source journal, country of origin, and introduction of a classification scheme or outcome tool.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Dean Giustini from the University of British Columbia Biomedical Branch Library and Raman Johal and Kimmi Dhillon from the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Division of Orthopaedic Trauma Research Office.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, University of British Columbia, 110-828 West 10th Avenue, Vancouver, BC, V5Z 1L8, Canada

    Kelly A. Lefaivre MD, MSc, FRCSC, Babak Shadgan MD, MSc & Peter J. O’Brien MD, FRCSC

Authors
  1. Kelly A. Lefaivre MD, MSc, FRCSC
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  2. Babak Shadgan MD, MSc
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  3. Peter J. O’Brien MD, FRCSC
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kelly A. Lefaivre MD, MSc, FRCSC.

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Each author certifies that he or she has no commercial associations (eg, consultancies, stock ownership, equity interest, patent/licensing arrangements, etc) that might pose a conflict of interest in connection with the submitted article.

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Lefaivre, K.A., Shadgan, B. & O’Brien, P.J. 100 Most Cited Articles in Orthopaedic Surgery. Clin Orthop Relat Res 469, 1487–1497 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11999-010-1604-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11999-010-1604-1

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