A Bibliometric Analysis of Alopecia Areata Literature over the Past 50 Years.

Abstract

Background: An extensive body of literature has been published regarding alopecia areata (AA) in the past 50 years. The current paper used a bibliometric analysis (BA) to identify high-quality research articles using criteria such as annual citations (ACs) and journal impact factor.

Objectives: To identify and analyze the top 100 most cited articles in AA scientific literature over the past 50 years using BA methods.

Methods: Web of Science (webOS) citation indexing database was used, on April 4th, 2023, to identify the most cited articles on AA. Articles were ranked by their ACs. Data sets were then subdivided into corresponding and senior authors, year of publication, journal and impact factor, total citations according to webOS database, ACs, affiliation, country of origin, manuscript type, design, focus, and usage count since 2013.

Results: The extracted articles were published between 1975-2019. Mean total citations ranged between 67 and 578. The most cited paper was: "Tofacitinib for the treatment of severe alopecia areata and variants: A study of 90 patients" by Liu et al. with an AC of 26.5. Most publications were published between 1990 and 1999 (n=28). The Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology was the most published journal (25 articles). The research focus of original papers was treatment (36%), epidemiology (22%), pathogenesis (20%), basic science (16%), and diagnosis (6%).

Conclusion: This analysis is the first to provide detailed bibliometric characteristics, highlighting the worldwide burden and research trends in.