The Most Cited Works in Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage: A Bibliometric Analysis of the 100 Most Cited Articles

Abstract

Background There is an abundance of articles published on aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH). Bibliometric analyses are helpful in determining the most impactful studies within a field. Methods An aSAH-specific search using a publicly accessible software search engine that indexes raw citations from Google Scholar was performed in August 2015. References were organized by number of citations, and the full length-articles for the top 100 cited papers were reviewed. Articles were categorized based on the focus of the paper. Results The top 100 articles were cited on average 654 times per paper. The Journal of Neurosurgery published the greatest number of top cited articles (33 of 100). Authors from North America published the majority (64%) of the top-cited articles and most publications were from the 1990s onwards. The most popular categories were “surgical and endovascular treatment” and “reviews, meta-analyses, and consensus guidelines.” There has been a steady increase each decade in highly cited reviews and meta-analyses on aSAH since the 1960s. A total of 73 articles were cited more than 400 times and met the criteria to be considered a “citation classic.” Compared with studies of citation numbers in other subspecialties of neurosurgery such as epilepsy and Parkinson disease, the impact of work in aSAH appeared to accrue fewer citations. Conclusions The current report provides an analysis of the most influential works in aSAH to describe trends in highly cited research and to provide a comprehensive list of the most influential literature in the field.