The 100 top-cited articles in the field of Wilson's disease from 1990 to 2022: A bibliometric study

Heliyon. 2023 Jun 29;9(7):e17785. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e17785. eCollection 2023 Jul.

Abstract

Objectives: To characterize the 100 most-cited articles in the field of Wilson's Disease (WD) to provide a general overview and reveal the historical developments classical studies, and new findings.

Design: WD-related articles were searched on the Web of Science database. The 100 most-cited articles were retrieved and their descriptive statistics were analyzed.

Data extraction and synthesis: The 100 most-cited articles in the field of WD were selected and several parameters, including citation count, citation density, first author, corresponding author, journal, country, institution, and keywords were extracted to assess the overall quality and impact of the articles.

Results: Most of the selected 100 articles were published in the 1990s and 2000s, with the highest number of articles published in 2005. Citations per paper ranged from 100 to 1,631, with a mean number of citations of 199.03. The top 100 articles were published in 38 journals, and the majority were published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. The most prominent research themes were clinical presentations, clinical trials, copper transport mechanisms, and dysregulation of copper metabolism. Prof. Svetlana Lutsenko, Prof. Peter Ferenci, Prof. George J. Brewer, and Prof. Diane W. Cox were among the most influential researchers in this field, while Euro-American countries were the most dominant in terms of research output. Keywords network analysis identified "Transporting ATPase," "ATP7B," and "Menkes disease" as the most influential keywords. Moreover, disease management, WD clinical phenotype, ATP7B function, and copper metabolism are potential hotspots in future WD research.

Conclusions: This study reveals the most influential articles in the field of WD research. In addition, the major research themes and technological innovations in the field of WD worldwide are presented.

Keywords: Bibliometric study; Citation analysis; Citespace; VOSviewer; Web of science; Wilson’s disease.