The number of citations an article receives is an important indicator to quantify its influence in its field. The aim of this study was to identify and analyze the characteristics of the 50 top-cited articles addressing dental education published in two journals dedicated to dental education (European Journal of Dental Education and Journal of Dental Education). The Web of Science database was searched to retrieve the 50 most-cited articles from the two journals in December 2018. The top-cited articles were analyzed for journal of publication, number of citations, institution and country of origin, year of publication, study type, keywords, theme and subtheme, and international collaborations. The results showed the 50 top-cited articles were cited between 24 and 146 times each. The majority of these top-cited articles (n=34) were published in the Journal of Dental Education Half (n=25) of the articles were by authors in the U.S. The most common study types were surveys (n=26) and reviews (n=10). The main themes of these top-cited articles were curriculum and learner characteristics. This bibliometric analysis can serve as a reference for recognizing studies with the most impact in the scholarship of dental education.
Keywords: bibliometric analysis; citation analysis; collaboration; dental education; funding; publishing; research.