Publication patterns on neonatal surgery over 65 years.

Background/purpose: Staying abreast of the literature in a given speciality is difficult. The aim of this study is to analyze the publication patterns of the neonatal surgical literature over the last six decades.
Materials: A search strategy for the Web of Science database was designed using MeSH defined terms for 10 index neonatal surgical conditions, with output analyzed over two time-periods.
Results: There were 6215 and 6144 publications for periods 1 (1945-1994) and 2 (1995-2010), respectively. There were 24 and 546 articles published in 1945 and 2010, respectively. The mean citation counts of the top 50 publications are 228 and 156 for periods 1 and 2, respectively. There were 6 and 11 authors with two or more publications in the top 50 list in periods 1 and 2, respectively. Three of the pediatric surgery journals cumulatively have published 30.9% of the total articles.
Conclusions: Publication patterns for neonatal surgical conditions have changed significantly over time. The majority of articles are published outside of pediatric surgical journals. Pediatric surgeons should not limit their reading to these journals.
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