The top 100 most cited manuscripts in bladder cancer: A bibliometric analysis (review article)

Abstract

Background: Bladder cancer is one of the top 10 frequently occurring neoplasms worldwide and is responsible for over 150,000 deaths per annum. Bibliometric analysis helps further our knowledge of bladder cancer research, topics and trends. It is useful to identify the most influential articles and its impact pertinent to this field that has helped mould our understanding and management of bladder cancer.

Materials and methods: Search terms related to bladder cancer were compiled and used to interrogate the Thompson Reuters Web of Science indexing database. The 100 most cited manuscripts in the English language were identified and further evaluated by theme, manuscript type, journal, year of publication, author and institution.

Results: The Web of Science search returned a total of 47,381 manuscripts. The median number of citations among the top 100 was 515, ranging from 2257 to 352. The greatest number of manuscripts in the top 100 were published in the Journal of Urology (n = 15), followed by the Journal of Clinical Oncology (n = 14) and European Urology (n = 13). The most cited paper (Stein et al. Journal of Clinical Oncology 2001, 2257 citations) reported on the long term outcomes from a large cohort of patients that underwent radical cystectomy and bilateral pelvic lymphadenectomy for transitional cell carcinoma. The most prevalent theme was the pathobiology of bladder cancer (n = 37) followed by oncological treatment (n = 17). The majority of manuscripts were of original research (n = 79) mainly based on basic science study design and published from institutions in the USA.

Conclusion: The pathobiology and oncological treatment of bladder cancer were the areas with most citations within the top 100. This bibliometric analysis has identified influential articles in the field on bladder cancer, which provides a useful guide to authors as to what type of article constitutes a highly citable publication in this subject.

Keywords: Bibliometric analysis; Bladder cancer; Citations.