Letter from the Guest Editor: Spinal Cord Imaging II—Pediatrics and Advanced Techniques

Abstract

Citation analysis can be used to evaluate an article's impact on its discipline. This study characterizes the most-cited articles related to skull base surgery.The 100 most-cited skull base neurosurgery articles in all journals were examined. A separate listing of the top 100 most-cited articles in dedicated skull base journals was also examined. The following information was recorded for each article: number of authors, country of origin, citation-count adjusted for number of years in print, topic, and level of evidence.The 100 overall most-cited articles appeared in 25 journals. The top 100 most-cited articles in dedicated skull base journals appeared in 3 journals. Publication dates ranged from 1965–2006 for the overall list and 1993–2010 for the dedicated skull base list. Citations ranged from 11–59 (mean, 19) for the dedicated skull base list and 115–487 for the overall list (mean, 175). The average time-adjusted citation count was 8.4 for the overall list and 2 for the dedicated skull base journal list.An original article in a nondedicated skull base journal related to the subspecialty of skull base with a citation count of 150 or more and time-adjusted citation count of 10 can be considered a high-impact publication. An original article in a dedicated skull base periodical having a total citation count of 20 or more and an average citation count of 2 per year or more can be considered a high impact publication.