Highly cited papers in rheumatology: identification and conceptual analysis

Rheumatology is a broad research area with an extensive background in scientific publications. Thus, the present study aims to identify the highly cited papers in Rheumatology research field, analyzing some aspects such as the documents distribution by years, journals, authors, institutions and countries. Furthermore, a conceptual evolution and a co-word analysis have been performed. In order to carry out this study, the H-Classics methodology, based on widely used H-index, has been used. A total of 317 highly cited papers have been detected from a total amount of 103.175 documents (articles and reviews) indexed in the Rheumatology category of the Web of Science database, from the period 1945–2016. As a result, it is obtained that Arthritis and Rheumatism is the journal with the highest number of documents, with more than half of detected documents. Professor Emery, from the University of Leeds (UK), and professor Felson, from the Boston University (USA), are the authors with more highly cited papers. The University of California (USA) and the University of Stanford (USA) are the main institutional contributors. USA is the leading producer, with more than half of the highly cited papers, but it is interesting to highlight the position reached by Peoples R. China, Mexico and, South Africa when an adjustment index based in the GDP per capita is applied. Osteo-arthritis and monoclonal antibody are the leader topics of this set of documents. The present study shows a useful insight into the development and evolution of the Rheumatology research field, revealing actors that have made the most significant research contribution to its development.

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