Analysis of the top 100 most influential papers in benign prostatic hyperplasia.

Introduction: The fund of knowledge on benign prostatic hypertrophy (BPH) has been growing since the 1970s. Citation analysis is a tool by which we can quantify influence of specific articles and assess the growth of a certain topic. This paper seeks to identify trends, as well as draw attention to the most influential papers, authors, and journals. Many analogous studies have been done, but none have been done in the field of BPH.

Methods: We used Thomson Reuters Web of Science to collect articles pertaining to BPH in a two-step fashion. We identified 117 keywords relevant to BPH and using these 117 words, we were able to identify 7302 total articles. These articles were organized by number of citations. Of the top 200 articles, 100 articles were excluded based on title and abstract analysis. One hundred articles were included for final analysis, as this is the standard of citation analysis.

Results: Overall, total citations were slightly correlated with journal impact factor. Author analysis revealed no significant difference between authorship and average citations. Topic analysis showed the most cited topic was surgical management with 657.35 citations per year. Study design analysis showed the predominant study design was the randomized control trial.

Conclusions: By using the two-step methodology, we were able to create a list of the top 100 most influential articles in the field of BPH. In doing so, we illustrated the growth of the field over time and paid tribute to the myriad of papers, authors, and journals that have shaped the field to this day.