'Initial Clinical Experience' articles are poorly cited and negatively affect the impact factor of the publishing journal: a review.

Objectives: The phrase 'Initial Clinical Experience' in a manuscript's title implies that the described technique offers promise of future clinical relevance. We assessed, using rates of subsequent citations, the actual academic relevance of such articles in comparison to articles not containing the phrase.

Design: We searched ISI database for articles that included the studied phrase in their titles between 1975 and 2009 and grouped the results by the related medical specialty. We excluded articles from journals with no available impact factor. For each identified article, we extracted number of included patients, citations/year, the average impact factor of the publishing journal over the last five years and the proportion of articles published in the same journal that garnered zero subsequent citations.

Setting: Retrospective review of a scientific database.

Participants: None.

Main outcome measures: Citation rate.

Results: Among a total of 982,127 articles published in 186 journals representing eight major publishing medical specialties, 531 (0.05%) were Initial Clinical Experience articles. Thirty percent of Initial Clinical Experience articles were never cited compared with 7% of the overall article volume (p < 0.0001). Citations/year for Initial Clinical Experience articles were significantly lower than the median impact factor (p < 0.0001). There was no correlation between citations and number of patients described in the Initial Clinical Experience articles (p = 0.61).

Conclusions: Initial Clinical Experience articles are cited less frequently than the average, especially in Cardiovascular, Radiology and Ophthalmology journals.