A Bibliometric Analysis of 100 Most-Cited Articles on Corneal Cross-Linking

Kaili Yang; Liyan Xu; Shaopei Wang; Meng Zhu; Qi Fan; Yuwei Gu; Yawen Wang; Qing Wang; Dongqing Zhao; Chenjiu Pang; Shengwei Ren

doi:10.3389/fmed.2022.904077

A Bibliometric Analysis of 100 Most-Cited Articles on Corneal Cross-Linking

Front Med (Lausanne). 2022 Jun 1:9:904077. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2022.904077. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Kaili Yang¹, Liyan Xu¹, Shaopei Wang¹, Meng Zhu¹, Qi Fan¹, Yuwei Gu¹, Yawen Wang¹, Qing Wang¹, Dongqing Zhao¹, Chenjiu Pang¹, Shengwei Ren¹

Affiliation

¹ Henan Provincial People's Hospital, Henan Eye Hospital, Henan Eye Institute, People's Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China.

Abstract

Background: Highly cited papers are expected to have high-quality data that significantly contribute to the body of knowledge. The study aimed to evaluate the characters of the 100 most-cited articles on corneal cross-linking (CXL) through a bibliometric analysis.

Materials and methods: The Web of Science database was searched to identify papers published from 1950 to 2020. A bibliometric analysis of the top 100-cited articles was conducted in the current study. The citation differences between basic research, clinical research, and reviews were compared by Kruskal-Wallis test. The association between citations and publication year was evaluated by Spearman correlation analysis. The VOSviewer software was used to create networks of co-authorship and keywords map.

Results: The median values of the number of citations, citations/year since publication, and citations since 2013 were 101, 9.5, and 11.92, respectively. A total of 61% of articles were clinical research. The citations since 2013 of clinical research were lower than basic research and the reviews (all p < 0.001). The publication year was positively correlated with the number of publications (r = 0.665, p = 0.013), and the total number of citations decreased for basic research (r = -0.447, p = 0.017), and clinical research (r = -0.433, p < 0.001). The J REFRACT SURG publishes the highest number of articles. The corresponding authors were predominantly from the Italy (N = 17), Germany (N = 16), and United States (N = 15). Spoerl Eberhard has the highest number of citations and total link strength with 15 articles. Extensive collaboration existed among the main core nodes containing "cross-linking (N = 45)," "riboflavin (N = 44)," and "ultraviolet A (UVA) (N = 42)."

Conclusion: The present study focused on the comprehensive analysis of the top 100-cited articles on the CXL research, providing insight into research developments over the past decades.

Keywords: 100 most-cited; VOSviewer; bibliometric analysis; citation; corneal cross-linking.