The 100 Most-disruptive Articles in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery and Sub-specialties (1954–2014)

Abstract

Background: Alternative bibliometrics have recently been the subject of significantly increased interest. The disruption index is a new bibliometric that was recently applied to surgery and urology and identifies papers that shift paradigms and eclipse previous research in a given field. Methods: The 100 most-disruptive publications in the 14 most prominent plastic and reconstructive surgery and subspecialty journals were identified. Results: We present the 100 most-disruptive studies as well as the 100 most-cited studies for comparison in n=14 of the most popular plastic and reconstructive surgery (and subspecialty) journals between 1954 and 2014. The 100 most-disruptive publications in these journals were more disruptive than 99.8% of all PubMed papers. Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (PRS) had the most papers in the top 100 (n=64) followed by British Journal of Plastic Surgery (currently Journal of Plastic, Reconstructive & Aesthetic Surgery, n=15), and Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery (n=7). PRS had 9 of the top 10 papers. However, Clinics in Plastic Surgery had the highest average disruption score for all its published papers (0.0029). The correlation coefficient linking disruption scores and citation counts was 0.01 and 0.11, respectively. The most common decade represented in the top 100 was the 1980's (n=31) and the least common was the 2000's (n=9). Conclusions: This is the first application of the disruption index to plastic and reconstructive surgery. The disruption score provides a unique ability to identify research that has shifted paradigms and driven the innovation that defines our specialty.

Citation versus disruption in the military: Analysis of the top disruptive military trauma research publications

“…Supplemental Figure 1, http://links.lww.com/TA/D32, shows the percent of DR and DS articles from the 10 most commonly identified journals. Regarding citation counts, the average citations were 22 with a median of 4 [IQR, [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13].…”

“…Disruption score analysis can identify important scientific work that may be missed by other bibliometric techniques. This technique has been used to identify important works in multiple surgical subspecialties that had previously been overlooked 2,9–16 . Disruptive work in the surgical field is rare.…”

“…This technique has been used to identify important works in multiple surgical subspecialties that had previously been overlooked. 2,[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] Disruptive work in the surgical field is rare. Previous analysis has found that only 25% of the PubMed library have positive disruptive scores, and only 10% have scores >0.10.…”

Using the Disruptive Score to Identify Publications That Changed Plastic Surgery Practice

“…This metric has recently been applied to plastic surgery and all of its associated fields including craniofacial and hand surgery 8 . While Hansdorfer et al 8 compared their findings to total citation count, there are further comparisons that could be made as well as refinements of the disruptive score.…”

“…This metric has recently been applied to plastic surgery and all of its associated fields including craniofacial and hand surgery 8 . While Hansdorfer et al 8 compared their findings to total citation count, there are further comparisons that could be made as well as refinements of the disruptive score. This study seeks to apply the disruptive score to a narrow set of purely plastic surgery publications to find the most disruptive papers in our field and to discuss how this metric could be used in the future.…”