The 100 Most Cited Papers About Brain Metastases.

BACKGROUND

A vast amount of articles centered on brain metastases have been published.

OBJECTIVE

To present the 100 most-cited articles dedicated to brain metastasis and to accomplish a broad literature review.

METHODS

In December 2019, we performed a title-focused search using the Thomson Reuters Web of Science database to identify the most cited articles centered on brain metastatic disease. Our search query term was based on using the following algorithm: "brain metastases" OR "brain metastasis" OR "brain metastatic disease" OR "cerebral metastases" OR "cerebral metastasis" OR "cerebral metastatic disease." Afterward, we reviewed the results to certify that they were relevant to the purposes of our research protocol. The 100 most cited papers were chosen and further analyzed.

RESULTS

Our search resulted in 11,579 articles, published from 1975 until the completion of our survey. The most cited article, by Patchell et al., was published in 1990, with 1862 citations, and an average of 62.07 citations per year, whereas the last in our list, by Gaspar et al., was published in 2010, with 195 total citations, and an average of 19.50 citations per year. Countries with the highest-cited articles included the United States (75 records), followed by Canada (16 records).

CONCLUSIONS

We discovered the top 100 most-cited articles centered on brain metastasis, all of which show a potentially increased level of interest, because they are meaningful scientific reports. In addition, we reviewed the historical development and advances in brain metastasis research and relevant points of interest, alongside the relevant contributions of different authors, fields of special interest, and countries. Many of the most cited articles were written by authors whose specialty was not neurosurgery or by neurosurgeons who were supported by colleagues from other medical fields. As a consequence, many of these articles were not published in neurosurgery-dedicated journals.