Characteristics and research trends of the 100 most-cited flatfoot articles

Abstract

Background: Bibliometric studies in the field of orthopedics have increased because of the large volume of the available literature that prevents understanding the general status of the related field. This study aimed to identify and analyze the 100 most-cited articles related to flatfoot to reveal their characteristics and research trends. Methods: Available literature on the Web of Science database until the end of 2020 were analyzed, and the 100 most-cited articles were determined. The characteristics of articles including publication year, authors, institutions, country, journal, number of pages, number of references, study design, level of evidence, main topic, age group, the specialty of the first author, and availability of funding were extracted and statistically analyzed for any association with the number of citations or citation density. Results: The average citation number was 63.1 +/- 43.8 (range, 30-278). The average cita-tion density was 3.4 +/- 1.8 (range, 0.8-12.6). The United States was the leading country with 65 articles, followed by Taiwan and the United Kingdom with five articles from each. Twenty-six papers had Level III evidence and 36 papers had Level IV evidence. Only three studies had Level I evidence and three had Level II evidence. The majority of articles (43 papers) were published in Foot & Ankle International. Citation density was positively correlated with publication year (P < .001) and the number of references (P 5 .004). Conclusions: The available data provide general characteristics of the 100 most influential papers about flatfoot. The vast majority of papers had a low level of evidence, indicating the need for higher quality research.