Publication trends in the field of the cornea in the last 4 decades: a bibliometric study

Abstract

Purpose: The objective of this bibliometric study was to identify the top 100 most-cited articles on the cornea published in the English language between 1980 and 2021 using multidimensional citation analysis.

Methods: The data were obtained from the Thomson Reuters Web of Science Core Collection and the PubMed databases. The top 100 articles in terms of citation number were identified and analyzed.

Results: A total of 40,792 articles related to the cornea were retrieved. The 100 most-cited articles were published between 1995 and 2000. The average time since publication was 19.64 ± 5.75 years. The mean impact factor of the journals was 10.27 ± 17.14 and the Q category of most journals was Q1. Ophthalmology was the journal with the most published articles (n = 10), which represented level 3 evidence. The three most common topics among the top 100 articles were treatment modality, histopathology, and diagnostic imaging. The most frequently mentioned treatments were related to limbal stem cell failure, crosslinking, and lamellar keratoplasty. We observed a negative correlation between the average number of citations per year and the time passed since publication (r = - 0.629; p = 0.001).

Conclusion: Our analysis of the top 100 most-cited articles on the cornea revealed scientific contributions, vital current data related to clinical implementations, and valuable insights into the current developments in ophthalmology. To our knowledge, this is the first study to evaluate the most influential papers on the cornea, and our findings highlight the research quality and latest discoveries and trends in the management cornea diseases.

Keywords: Bibliometric; Citation; Cornea; Trend analysis.