Top 100 cited articles on infection in orthopaedics: A bibliometric analysis

PURPOSE: The infection is an essential problem in the clinical practice in orthopedics. The bibliometric analysis was conducted to evaluate the top 100 cited articles on infection in orthopaedics. METHODS: The Web of Science (WoS) Core Database was comprehensively searched from 1975 to 2017, and the literature search was limited in Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-E). The subject terms included “infection”, “infectious”, and “infect∗”. All retrieved articles were filtrated by selecting the subspecialty of “Orthopedics”. The searching results were listed by citation times to identify the top 100 cited articles. Significant information was elicited, including the authors, journals, countries, institutions, published year, and types of publication. RESULTS: A significant increase was observed in the number of annual publications focusing on infection in orthopedics worldwide. Each of the top 100 cited articles was cited more than 150 times. Total citation times was positively associated with citation times in 2016 (P <.01) and mean citation times per year (P <.01). Conversely, age of the article was negatively associated with citation times in 2016 (P <.01) and mean citation times per year (P <.01). Besides, citation times in 2016 was positively related to mean citation times per year (P <.01). The United States was the most productive country, surgery was the most popular subspecialty and Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery American Volume was the most popular journal. CONCLUSION: Infection in orthopaedics has attracted more and more researchers’ concern. As for the top 100 cited articles, there were significant relationships among total citation times, citation times in 2016 and mean citation times per year as well as age of the article. The United States was the most productive country, surgery was the most popular subspecialty and Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery American Volume was the most popular journal.