THE MOSE INFLUENTIAL PAPERS IN THE. NEUROSURGICAL MANAGEMENT OF PAEDIATRIC CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM TUMOURS

Citation number can be considered a measure of a publication’s academic influence. Previous studies have suggested a citation number greater than 50 and a citation rate higher than 5 per year constitute a high impact in neurosurgery. We set out to determine and categorise the most highly influential papers related to the neurosurgical management of paediatric central nervous system (CNS) tumours between 2005-2010. Child’s Nervous System, Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics and Pediatric Neurosurgery were previously identified as publishing the most influential papers in paediatric neurosurgery. All papers published by these journals between 2005-2010 were collected from Web of Science. Papers describing surgical management of paediatric CNS neoplasms were identified and the 50 most cited were determined. Of the most highly cited papers, 54% were published in Child’s Nervous System, 26% in Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics and 20% in Pediatric Neurosurgery. The citation number ranged from 27-93 (mean = 43) and citations rate (per year) ranged from 2.31-8.25. Of the top 50 papers, 24% had more than 50 citations and 8 of these had a citation rate greater than 5 per year. 72% of papers were experiential studies and 24% were review articles. 42% described surgical management of craniopharyngiomas and 10% related to management of posterior fossa tumours. There were no randomised controlled trials. Between 2005-2010, 8 papers related to surgical management of paediatric CNS tumours can be considered as having high impact in the literature. The majority of papers focused on surgical management of craniopharyngiomas.