Bui-Mansfield LT

[Eugene Garfield]

E-mail : L.T. Bui-Mansfield : E-mail Addresses: liem_mansfield at hotmail.com

Title: Whatever happened to the 50 most frequently cited articles published
in AJR?

Author(s): Bui-Mansfield LT

Source: AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ROENTGENOLOGY 185 (3): 597-601 SEP 2005

Document Type: Editorial Material  Language: English
Cited References: 12               Times Cited: 0

Addresses:
Bui-Mansfield LT (reprint author), Brooke Army Med Ctr, Dept Radiol, 3851
Roger Brook Dr,FSH, Ft Sam Houston, TX 78234 USA
Brooke Army Med Ctr, Dept Radiol, Ft Sam Houston, TX 78234 USA
Uniformed Serv Univ Hlth Sci, Dept Radiol, Bethesda, MD 20814 USA
Wake Forest Univ, Sch Med, Dept Radiol, Winston Salem, NC 27157 USA

E-mail Addresses: liem_mansfield at hotmail.com

Publisher: AMER ROENTGEN RAY SOC, 1891 PRESTON WHITE DR, SUBSCRIPTION
FULFILLMENT, RESTON, VA 22091 USA
IDS Number: 961GU

ISSN: 0361-803X

CITED REFERENCES :
AM ROENTG RAY SOC
AJR
 BUIMANSFIELD L
AJR : 2004
 BYDDER GM
CLINICAL NMR IMAGING OF THE BRAIN - 140 CASES
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ROENTGENOLOGY 139 : 215 1982
 CAFFEY J
MULTIPLE FRACTURES IN THE LONG BONES OF INFANTS SUFFERING FROM CHRONIC
SUBDURAL HEMATOMA
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ROENTGENOLOGY 56 : 163 1946
 CHEW FS
AJR - THE 50 MOST FREQUENTLY CITED PAPERS IN THE PAST 50 YEARS
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ROENTGENOLOGY 150 : 227 1988
 COLLINS VP
OBSERVATIONS ON GROWTH RATES OF HUMAN TUMORS
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ROENTGENOLOGY RADIUM THERAPY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE 76 :
988 1956
 FERRUCCI JT
DIAGNOSIS OF ABDOMINAL-MALIGNANCY BY RADIOLOGIC FINE-NEEDLE ASPIRATION
BIOPSY
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ROENTGENOLOGY 134 : 323 1980
 GERZOF SG
PERCUTANEOUS CATHETER DRAINAGE OF ABDOMINAL ABSCESSES GUIDED BY ULTRASOUND
AND COMPUTED-TOMOGRAPHY
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ROENTGENOLOGY 133 : 1 1979
 GIANTURCO C
MECHANICAL DEVICES FOR ARTERIAL-OCCLUSION
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ROENTGENOLOGY 124 : 428 1975
 SHEEDY PF
COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY OF BODY - INITIAL CLINICAL-TRIAL WITH EMI PROTOTYPE
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ROENTGENOLOGY 127 : 23 1976
 VEZINA JL
PROLACTIN-SECRETING PITUITARY MICROADENOMAS - ROENTGENOLOGIC DIAGNOSIS
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ROENTGENOLOGY 120 : 46 1974
 WOLFE JN
BREAST PATTERNS AS AN INDEX OF RISK FOR DEVELOPING BREAST-CANCER
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ROENTGENOLOGY 126 : 1130 1976

Liem T. Bui-Mansfield1,2,3
1 Department of Radiology, Brooke Army Medical Center, 3851 Roger Brooke
Dr., FSH, San Antonio, TX 78234.
2 Department of Radiology, USUHS, Bethesda, MD 20814-4799.
3 Department of Radiology, Wake Forest University School of Medicine,
Winston-Salem, NC 27157-1088.

Received February 10, 2005; accepted after revision February 16, 2005.

Address correspondence to L. T. Bui-Mansfield (liem_mansfield at hotmail.com).


Cited References - at the end.




The opinions and assertions contained herein are those of the author and
should not be construed as official or as representing the opinions of the
Department of the Army or the Department of Defense.

It has been nearly 20 years since the list of the 50 most frequently cited
articles published in the American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR) was
published [1]. What has happened in the ensuing time? Which articles have
increased or decreased in ranking? These questions are not only of
historical interest but also reveal the relevance of radiology in daily
clinical practice. The objective of this article was to answer these
questions.

Materials and Methods

The list of the 50 most frequently cited articles published in the AJR was
obtained from Chew [1]. Using the Web of Science search engine (Institute
for Scientific Information) [2], the number of citations for each article
was obtained. A citation occurs when one scientific article (the citing
article) lists another (the cited article) as a reference. The Science
Citation Index is a reference text that lists cited articles along with
their citing articles that were published in scientific journals. The
database covers 1945 to the present.

The articles were ranked based on the number of citations that they have
received since 1945. In addition, the articles were classified according to
subspecialty (e.g., abdominal imaging, basic science, breast imaging, chest
imaging, gastrointestinal imaging, interventional radiology,
neuroradiology, nuclear medicine, pediatric radiology, and radiation
oncology), type of article (e.g., clinical application, complication,
concept, technique, and treatment), clinical problem addressed, and types
of imaging techniques or treatment (e.g., CT, MRI, radiography, sonography,
and radiation therapy).

The Institute for Scientific Information was commissioned to provide to the
ARRS a current list of the 100 most cited articles published in the AJR as
of September 30, 2004.

Results

The new ranking of Chew's list of 50 most frequently cited articles
published in the AJR [1] is shown in Table 1. The number of citations
ranges from 136 to 592, with a mean of 232. Three articles have not changed
in ranking, 24 articles have dropped, and 23 articles have risen in ranking
since 1987. The increase in ranking ranges from +1 to +34. The decrease in
ranking ranges from -2 to -25. "Observations on growth rates of human
tumors," "Clinical NMR imaging of the brain: 140 cases," and "Percutaneous
catheter drainage of abdominal abscesses guided by ultrasound and CT" [3-5]
did not change in their ranking since 1988.







Discussion
The articles that remain frequently cited have one common feature. They
were about topics that appealed to a broad audience of physicians, not just
to radiologists, and were of clinical importance. "Observations on growth
rates of human tumors" [3] is of interest to radiologists, pathologists,
oncologists, and surgeons. Research conducted on tumor growth in any
medical discipline is likely to cite this article. For the last 2 decades,
breast cancer screening and treatment has become an important public issue.
Thus, research conducted by primary care physicians, surgeons, and
radiologists frequently cited Wolfe's article [9]. Before Caffey's report
[6], nonaccidental trauma was not well recognized in the medical
literature. Subsequent research on this topic invariably cited his article.
The trend of medicine is toward minimally invasive procedures.
Consequently, radiologically guided fine-needle aspiration and biopsy of
masses became popular because they are less invasive, safer for the
patients, and less costly. Again, this topic would be appealing to a wide
audience, some of whom would perform their own research that cited
Ferrucci's article [10].






Conversely, the greatest decrease in ranking of some articles is due to the
rapid advance of technology in radiology, which makes old technology
obsolete, or to the development of a new technique. For example, "Prolactin-
secreting pituitary microadenomas: roentgenologic diagnosis" [11] had the
sharpest drop in ranking, from 9 to 34, because MRI has since replaced
roentgenography as the imaging technique of choice for the diagnosis of
pituitary masses. With each new generation of CT, it is less likely
that "Computer tomography of the body: initial clinical trial with the EMI
prototype" [8] would be cited.

Interventional radiology, radiation oncology, abdominal imaging, and
neuroradiology account for two thirds of the 50 most frequently cited
articles published in AJR, reflecting the greatest growth in radiology in
these subspecialties. CT is primarily responsible for the advancement in
abdominal imaging and neuroradiology. A subspecialty that is conspicuously
absent is musculoskeletal imaging. Not a single article about the
musculoskeletal system was on the list. The most logical explanation is
that the most recent advance in musculoskeletal imaging was the
introduction of MRI, which did not come into widespread use until the
1990s, well after the publication of Chew's article [1].

The types of articles reflect both the types of research conducted in
radiology and the emphasis of past AJR editors. AJR tended to publish
articles with practical applications over basic science or early research
in imaging. The 2003 AJR Subscriber Research Study has supported this
observation. Ninety percent of respondents to the survey said that the
scientific content in AJR is valuable to their day-to-day practice. More
than half of the respondents rated the publication as informative (88%),
easy to read (71%), practical (64%), and timely (54%) [12].

The clinical problems that were addressed in the most frequently cited
articles published in AJR continue to be important disease processes of
daily interest to general radiologists. They include effects of radiation
exposure, Hodgkin's disease, gallbladder disease, liver mass, pituitary
mass, abdominal abscess, adrenal mass, pulmonary embolism, nonaccidental
trauma, and lung cancer. Again, this reflects the publishing philosophy of
the AJR editorial office and the interest of AJR readers [12].

Despite the recent introduction of imaging techniques such as sonography,
CT, and MRI, papers centered on radiography still accounted more than half
of the most frequently cited articles published by AJR, more than all the
articles combined that highlight new imaging techniques. This illustrates
the established tradition of radiography in the diagnosis of diseases.
Also, it takes time for the newer imaging techniques to be assimilated into
the clinical practice of radiology and accepted by the rest of the medical
community.

When the number of citations that each article received was plotted against
time at 5-year intervals, four typical patterns of curve were identified.
Articles on clinical application of imaging techniques or technical
procedures had similar curves. Both had a rapid rise and precipitous drop
in citations within the first 10 years. This reflected the introduction of
new imaging techniques and interventional techniques that made the imaging
techniques less useful and the procedures less popular. After the first
decade of publication, articles on technical procedures had a slower
decrease in the number of citations than articles on imaging techniques.
Articles about new concepts had two patterns of citations. The article by
Collins et al. [3] has had a near constant number of citations over time
since its publication. This probably reflects the general acceptance of
this concept by the scientific and medical communities. On the other hand,
Caffey's article [6] has had a gradual but steady increase in the number of
citations since its publication. It had the highest number of citations in
the 1980s and since then, the number of citations has stabilized in the 30s
over time. This pattern suggests gradual acceptance of a new concept, which
over time was supported by subsequent research in other fields of medicine.

Because the database of the Institute for Scientific Information only went
back to 1945, seminal articles published before 1945 may not be accurately
represented. Although this is a valid argument, as long as the articles are
cited beyond their publication date, the Institute for Scientific
Information database will keep track of their number of citations.
Therefore, it is highly unlikely that frequently cited articles published
before 1945 were not duly recognized.

The articles on Chew's list [1] continued to be frequently cited. Forty-
four articles (88%) on Chew's list appeared on the current list of 100 most
cited articles published in AJR, a list that will be published later [13].
Of the top 10 most cited AJR articles, eight came from Chew's list [1].

Since 1988, 94% of the 50 most frequently cited articles published in AJR
have changed their ranking. The articles that remained frequently cited
were about topics that appealed to a broad audience of physicians and were
of clinical importance. The clinical problems that were addressed in the
most frequently cited articles published in AJR continue to be important
disease processes of daily interest to practicing radiologists.



References


Chew FS. AJR. The 50 most frequently cited papers in the past 50 years. AJR
1988;150 : 227-233[Medline]
Web of Science Web site. Institute for Scientific Information.
www.isinet.com. Accessed July 18, 2004
Collins VP, Loeffler RK, Tivey H. Observations on growth rates of human
tumors. AJR 1956;76 : 988-1000
Bydder GM, Steiner RE, Young IR, et al. Clinical NMR imaging of the brain:
140 cases. AJR 1982;139 : 215-236[Medline]
Gerzof SG, Robbins AH, Birkett DH, Johnson WC, Pugatch RD, Vincent ME.
Percutaneous catheter drainage of abdominal abscesses guided by ultrasound
and computer tomography. AJR 1979;133 : 1-8[Medline]
Caffey J. Multiple fractures in the long bones of infants suffering from
chronic subdural hematoma. AJR 1946;56 : 163-173
Gianturco C, Anderson JH, Wallace S. Mechanical devices for arterial
occlusion. Am J Roentgenol Radium Ther Nucl Med 1975; 124:428 -435[Medline]
Sheedy PF, Stephens DH, Hattery RR, Huhm JR, Hartman GW. Computed
tomography of the body: initial clinical trial with the EMI prototype. AJR
1976; 127:23 -51[Medline]
Wolfe JN. Breast patterns as an index of risk for developing breast cancer.
AJR 1976;126 : 1130-1139[Medline]
Ferrucci JT Jr, Wittenberg J, Mueller PR, et al. Diagnosis of abdominal
malignancy by radiologic fine-needle aspiration biopsy. AJR 1980; 134:323 -
330[Medline]
Vezina JL, Sutton TJ. Prolactin-secreting pituitary microadenomas:
roentgenologic diagnosis. Am J Roentgenol Radium Ther Nucl Med 1974;
120:46 -54[Medline]
American Roentgen Ray Society. AJR subscriber research study, conducted by
the Sabatier Consulting Group
Bui-Mansfield, L. 100 most cited articles published in AJR. Institute for
Scientific Information, Philadelphia, PA. Conducted September 21, 2004 (in
press, AJR)