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Citation classics in obstetrics and gynecology: the 100 most frequently cited journal articles in the last 50 years

Presented at the 58th Annual Clinical Meeting of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, San Francisco, CA, May 15-19, 2010.
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Objective

Our objective was to characterize the most frequently cited articles published in obstetrics and gynecology journals during the last 50 years.

Study Design

We utilized the 2008 edition of Journal Citation Reports and Social Sciences Citation Index database to determine the most frequently cited articles published after 1956. Articles were evaluated for several characteristics, and an unadjusted categorical analysis was performed to compare pre- and post-1980 articles.

Results

The 100 most frequently cited articles were published in 11 journals between 1957 and 2004. Most articles were published by US-based authors. Forty-four articles were related to obstetrics and 56 were related to gynecology. The most common study design was observational. There were only 7 randomized controlled trials, and randomized controlled trials were not more common after 1980 (6.3% vs 8.1%; P = .71).

Conclusion

Most “citation classics” in obstetrics and gynecology are observational studies published in high-impact journals by US-based authors after 1980.

Section snippets

Materials and Methods

We used the 2008 edition of Journal Citation Reports: Science Edition to identify all journals related to obstetrics and gynecology.3 Under the heading “obstetrics and gynecology,” 61 journals were identified. We then used the Social Sciences Citation Index database to determine the most frequently cited articles published in these journals from the inception of the database in 1956 through August 2009.3

The 100 most frequently cited articles were selected for further review. We performed a

Results

During the study period, 45,351 articles were cited at least once and 1414 articles were cited ≥100 times in the Social Sciences Citation Index database. Table 1 lists the 100 most frequently cited articles in descending order according to the number of citations each received. The most frequently cited article, which was published by Louis Gluck and colleagues in 1971, received 1090 citations. These articles were published from 1957 through 2004. The Figure illustrates the breakdown of the top

Comment

In this article, we identified and characterized the 100 most frequently cited articles in journals of obstetrics and gynecology during the last 50 years. Our study found that the majority of authors were from academic institutions in the United States. This has been seen in other citation classics papers, and may reflect the tendency of US-based authors to publish in North American journals.4, 5, 6, 12

We also demonstrated that observational studies were the most frequent type of study design.

References (14)

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Cite this article as: Brandt JS, Downing AC, Howard DL, et al. Citation classics in obstetrics and gynecology. Am J Obstet Gynecol 2010;203:355.e1-7.

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