The 20 most-cited articles in echocardiography literature

A Bibliometric Analysis discussed by the six authors With the incidence of heart failure and valvular heart disease on the rise,1–2 it has been speculated that the role of non-invasive cardiac imaging especially echocardiography and cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging will become even more pivotal.3 Transthoracic echocardiographic (TTE) imaging is the most commonly performed non-invasive cardiac diagnostic tool, with an estimated 25 million studies performed annually worldwide.4 Considering the substantial amount of clinical and research data on echocardiography in the medical literature, it is an uphill task for a clinician to address the large amount of resources in an efficient, timely, and accurate manner. The diversity of procedures, their relevance to cardiac pathology and their diagnostic and therapeutic significance is reflected by a similar heterogeneity of the data on cardiac imaging and the journals that publish it. As we move into the future of evidence-based medicine, the organization of this information becomes increasingly crucial to enable the detection of gaps and weaknesses in these repositories of knowledge. Such data can help to enhance research productivity by facilitating research allocation and rationalizing research organizations.5