Long Xiao, Huang Jiu-Zuo, Ho Yuh-Shan
Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Beijing, People's Republic of China.
Trend Research Centre, Asia University, No. 500, Lioufeng Road, Wufeng, Taichung County 41354, Taiwan.
Am J Surg. 2014 Nov;208(5):841-849. doi: 10.1016/j.amjsurg.2014.03.016. Epub 2014 Jul 30.
Surgery is one of the most rapidly developing specialties in the past century. Diagnostic methods, operation technique, and knowledge of the diseases are changing continuously. In the academic history, lots of classic papers brought advances for surgery. They were accepted and cited numerously by the medical specialists all over the world. Citation analysis reflects the recognition a work has received in the scientific community by its peers.
The articles in the field of surgery have been cited at least 1,000 times since its publication to 2011 were analyzed. By categorizing the publication year, journals, authors, institutions, countries, life citation cycles, level of evidence provided, and characteristics of the topmost articles, we intended to determine what qualities make the articles important to the specialty. The methodology used in this study was based on the Science Citation Index Expanded database of Web of Science from Thomson Reuters. According to Journal Citation Reports of 2011, it indexes 8,336 journals with citation references across 176Web of Science categories in science edition. Level of evidence of these articles was graded according to the standard provided by Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine.
Totally 36 articles have been cited at least 1,000 times since their publication to the year 2011. According to their citation histories, 35 articles were further evaluated. These topmost articles covered 8 subspecialties of surgery and were published in 17 journals. The publication year varied from 1940 to 1999 and the articles provided different level of evidence, most of which are retrospective studies of case series. Six articles were research articles including animal model, histology analysis, and laboratory research. The others were clinical articles. From the results of citation analysis, the classic articles are not always in top citations. In addition, some of these articles have no citations after several years post their publication. The introduction of a commonly used classification or scoring system is a major factor in propelling citation by other authors. The most cited articles in surgery present their long academic life in spite of their level of evidence and journal impact factor in which they were published.
外科学是过去一个世纪中发展最为迅速的专业领域之一。诊断方法、手术技术以及对疾病的认识都在不断变化。在学术史上，许多经典论文推动了外科学的进步。它们被世界各地的医学专家广泛接受和引用。引文分析反映了一项研究在科学界获得同行认可的程度。
对自发表至2011年期间在外科领域被引用至少1000次的文章进行分析。通过对发表年份、期刊、作者、机构、国家、生命周期引文、提供的证据水平以及最具影响力文章的特征进行分类，我们旨在确定哪些特质使这些文章对外科学专业具有重要意义。本研究采用的方法基于汤森路透科学网的科学引文索引扩展数据库。根据2011年的期刊引证报告，该数据库索引了科学版176个科学网类别中8336种带有引文参考文献的期刊。这些文章的证据水平根据牛津循证医学中心提供的标准进行分级。
自发表至2011年，共有36篇文章被引用至少1000次。根据它们的引用历史，对其中35篇文章进行了进一步评估。这些最具影响力的文章涵盖了外科学8个亚专业领域，发表在17种期刊上。发表年份从1940年至1999年不等，文章提供了不同水平的证据，其中大部分是病例系列的回顾性研究。6篇文章为研究论文，包括动物模型、组织学分析和实验室研究。其他的则是临床文章。从引文分析结果来看，经典文章并不总是被引用最多的。此外，其中一些文章在发表几年后就没有被引用了。引入常用的分类或评分系统是推动其他作者引用的主要因素。外科学中被引用最多的文章，无论其证据水平和发表期刊的影响因子如何，都展现出了长久的学术生命力。
