The Top 100 Most Cited Neurosurgical Articles on COVID-19: A Bibliometric Analysis

BACKGROUND: The first case of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was reported in December 2019 in Wuhan, China. This study uses a bibliometric analysis of the top 100 most cited neurosurgical COVID-19-related articles to date to identify and determine their characteristics. METHODS: The Scopus library was searched for all published articles on neurosurgery and COVID-19. The main keywords were used for the search “neurosurgery, neurosurgical, and COVID-19”. English language articles reporting on neurosurgical aspects during COVID-19 were included in the study. The retrieved top 100 articles were analyzed, and the following characteristics were noted for each article: 1) article title, 2) year of publication, 3) citations, 4) first author, 5) corresponding author, 6) names of other authors, 7) journal name 8) article type, 9) study focus and 10) involvement of the patient. RESULTS: Our search obtained articles published from December 2019 until 29 March 2022. It was observed that 93% of the documents were published in 2020. The top 100 articles have been cited 2649 times in total. The most cited article was “Factors Associated with Surgical Mortality and Complications among Patients with and without Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Italy” by Doglietto F. et al., published in JAMA Neurology in June 2020, with 124 citations. CONCLUSIONS: This analysis facilitated in making evidence-based clinical decisions and drawing the attention of researchers to identify and contribute to the increasing scientific work by identifying the top 100 most cited neurosurgical COVID-19-related articles published.