Key result
Most-cited echocardiography articles are 66% US-based and focus primarily on LV structure and function.
Why the study?
A bibliometric analysis was conducted to reveal the development history, major applications, and future trends of echocardiography.
A bibliometric analysis of the top 100 most-cited echocardiography articles reveals that left ventricular structure/function and valvular heart disease have been the primary focus, with recent trends shifting toward evaluating novel cardiovascular therapies and cancer therapy cardiotoxicity.
Indicates geographic and thematic concentration in top echocardiography citations; leaves open whether this reflects or shapes clinical priorities.
Echocardiography has been widely applied since 1970s, and has developed into a reliable approach to assess the heart in both cardiology and interdisciplinary settings. A bibliometric analysis can reveal its development history, major applications, and trending in the future. Two independent researchers conducted proper literature retrieval in Web of Science database and ranked search results by total citation. The abstracts of articles were carefully reviewed and top 100 most-cited articles were included. Most top-cited studies on echocardiography were performed in USA (66%) by cardiologists (62%) and published in high-impact cardiology specialized journals like Circulation (39%). Most top-cited articles were published in two 5-year intervals of 1995 ~ 1999 and 2000 ~ 2004 which witnessed the invention and promotion of new echocardiographic techniques including Doppler tissue imaging and speckle tracking imaging. Most commonly used technologies to investigate primary study endpoints were two-dimensional echocardiography, M-mode echocardiography, and Doppler flow imaging. Left ventricular structure (25%), function (19%), and valvular heart disease (13%) have remained vital subjects since the birth of echocardiography. Four of top 10 most-cited articles published after 2009 focused on the effectiveness of novel cardiovascular therapies and another four focused on cardiotoxicity of cancer chemotherapies. The majority of top-cited studies on echocardiography were performed in USA and published in cardiology specialized journals by cardiologists. The structure and function of left ventricle and valvular heart disease have remained vital subjects since the birth of echocardiography, which will probably be widely applied to evaluate the effect of various treatments on cardiovascular system.
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Huang et al. (2019) studied Echocardiography (n=100). The top 100 most-cited articles on echocardiography were predominantly performed in the USA (66%) and focused on left ventricular structure (25%) and function (19%).
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