Original ArticleThe Top 50 Most-Cited Articles on Acoustic Neuroma
Introduction
Acoustic neuroma is a benign, slow-growing neoplasm arising from the nerve sheath of the vestibular branch of the vestibulocochlear nerve. It is the most common tumor of the cerebellopontine angle and the internal auditory canal,1, 2 with an incidence of 0.6–0.8 per 100,000 persons per year.3, 4, 5 The first case of acoustic neuroma was reported in 1777 by Sandifort.5 In 1894, Ballance performed the first successful resection of acoustic neuroma.6 In 1925, the surgical mortality rate was 67%–84% according to Walter Dandy, whereas Harvey Cushing reported that the mortality rate was only 11%.7 In 1951, radiosurgery was introduced as a treatment option by Lars Leksell8 and, over the following 20 years, the outcome of radiosurgery improved significantly.
Today, the available management options for acoustic neuroma are microsurgical resection, stereotactic radiosurgery, and observation of patients using imaging surveillance.9, 10 The continuous expansion of the scientific literature to achieve a multidisciplinary overview compelled us to highlight the most important work to help guide future practice.11 Although bibliometric analyses have been conducted in many fields, such as neurosurgery,12, 13, 14, 15 orthopedic surgery,16 otolaryngology–head and neck surgery,17 radiology,18 and anesthesiology,19 no such analyses have been performed solely on acoustic neuroma. We aimed to conduct a bibliometric analysis of the 50 most-cited works on acoustic neuroma and to provide this as a guide for health care providers in that field.
Section snippets
Search Strategy
In April 2017, we conducted a title-specific search of the Scopus database to identify highly cited works on acoustic neuromas. In our search, we used the following keywords: “acoustic neuroma,” “vestibular schwannoma,” and “cerebellopontine angle.” The search results were arranged in descending order, with the article with the highest citation count (CC) positioned at the top. We then collected and analyzed the 50 most-cited articles.
Data
The following significant data were collected: article
Article Analysis
Our search query returned 5171 articles. Of these, the 50 most-cited articles were identified with the following data recorded: CC, CY (rank), first author, title, year of publication, and publishing journal (Table S1). Overall, the 50 most-cited articles had an average of 175 citations per article. All articles were published between 1980 and 2006, with 19 articles published between 1995 and 1999, which represents the peak period of acoustic neuroma publication (Figure 1). The most prolific
Discussion
Bibliometric studies do not necessarily prove the quality of the articles examined; however, the research value and importance an article has in the medical literature can be roughly determined by the number of citations it has received. In addition, analysis of the myriad number of published articles in the field of acoustic neuroma highlights the accumulation of knowledge that has occurred over time. Therefore, we undertook analysis of the top 50 most-cited articles on acoustic neuroma.
The
Conclusions
Using the Scopus database, we identified the 50 most-cited articles on acoustic neuromas. Most of the 50 articles were written by neurosurgeons and otolaryngologists, and the majority were published in the journals Neurosurgery and Laryngoscope. Furthermore, most of the articles focused on the use of nonsurgical interventions, such as stereotactic radiosurgery and microsurgical resection, for the treatment of acoustic neuromas. This bibliometric analysis can serve as a guide for future research
Acknowledgments
The authors thank the College of Medicine Research Centre, Deanship of Scientific Research, King Saud University, for supporting this research.
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Conflict of interest statement: The authors declare that the article content was composed in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.