A bibliometric analysis of classic publications in web of science category of orthopedics

BACKGROUND: The past century has witnessed the rapid development of operation technique, surgical instruments, and knowledge of the diseases in orthopedics. In the academic history, a number of classic papers boosted the advancement for surgery. In this paper, we performed a bibliometric analysis, aiming to determine the most influential studies within the field. METHODS: Articles were searched from the publication year of 1900 to 2016 according to the Science Citation Index Expanded database of the Clarivate Analytics Web of Science Core Collection database. Two citation indicators TC(year) and C(year) were employed to characterize the classic articles and the articles were identified and analyzed. RESULTS: A total of 30 classic articles with TC(2016) ≥ 1000 in Web of Science category of orthopedics were identified, all written in English between 1961 and 2007 by nine countries. The minimal value of TC(2016) was 1010; the maximum 3570; and the average 1591. Thirty classic articles were published in eight journals that were listed in the Web of Science category of orthopedics in 2016, and in two other orthopedics journals that were no longer tracked by Web of Science category of orthopedics as of 2016. Among the top 10 cited articles in both TC(2016) and C(2016), five articles barely received attention in the first few years after their publication, while they became cited more and more frequently in the last decade. CONCLUSION: This study evaluated the development and trend of orthopedics research by adopting bibliometric analysis. It serves as a guide for investigators in the future research.