The 100 Most Influential Publications in Acute Ischemic Stroke

In order to identify the top one hundred most influential articles in acute ischemic stroke research, we applied a well-established technique of citation analysis to relevant research published between 1988 and 2015. Numerous studies have applied the technique of citation analysis to other fields. However, this is the first paper to apply such a technique in the field of acute ischemic stroke. Using Thomson Reuters Web of Science, a two-step search strategy was conducted to identify publications relevant to the field of acute ischemic stroke. After a thorough analysis of titles and abstracts, a top 100 list of publications was constructed. Various supplementary statistical analyses were conducted to explore the association between author reputation or overall publication influence, and the rate at which publications were recognized and incorporated by other researchers in the field. A list of the top 100 articles in acute ischemic stroke from 1988-2015 was identified and further divided into 7 subcategories. Werner Hacke was the most published first author in this analysis. He and the top 10 most published first authors had publications mainly focused on treatment. The article, “Tissue Plasminogen Activator for Acute Ischemic Stroke” from 1995 was the most cited. Finally, we found no correlation between average citations per year and time to first citation. We demonstrate the utility of a two-phase citation analysis technique in the identification and accumulation the top one hundred most influential publications in acute ischemic stroke from 1988 to 2015.