Top-cited articles in cerebrospinal fluid leak (rhinorrhea and otorrhea) (1945–2018)

INTRODUCTION: As scientific knowledge has grown in biomedicine, it has also become necessary to develop tools to manage and understand the body of evidence. In that sense, bibliometrics has become a consolidated discipline for analyzing scientific activity, enabling the characterization of a particular field or area of knowledge by means of the quantification of the bibliographic characteristics of scientific publications. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to determine the most frequently cited articles in the field of cerebrospinal fluid rhinorrhea and otorrhea. METHODS: The searches took place on the Clarivate Analytics Web of Science platform, which includes the MEDLINE database. The study period was limited to 1945–2018. RESULTS: The 101 most cited articles in the field of cerebrospinal fluid leak were published in 36 journals, and the most important specialties contributing to the literature were neurosurgery and otorhinolaryngology. Of the 101 top-cited articles, 70% were published from 1990 to 2018, with two distinct periods of high scientific productivity: 1990–1999 and 2000–2009. In the first period, the main topic of research interest was endoscopic sinus surgery for cerebrospinal fluid fistulas, whereas from 2000 to 2009, documents focused more on surgical aspects of extended skull base approaches. The articles received 73–767 citations. The top article over the whole study period was “A novel reconstructive technique after endoscopic expanded endonasal approaches: vascular pedicle nasoseptal flap” by Hadad et al., which was published 2006 in Laryngoscope. Its publication represented an inflection point in the literature on cerebrospinal fluid leak and endoscopic skull base surgery, and it gave rise to numerous other research publications. CONCLUSION: Different surgical innovations in the field of cerebrospinal fluid leak sparked two different periods of intense scientific activity. Otorhinolaryngology and neurosurgery were the dominant specialties. The most frequent topic studied was endoscopic surgery; others included clinical and diagnostic features, neurinoma surgery, and cerebrospinal fluid leak related to temporal bone fractures.