Scientific Production in Dentistry: The National Panorama through a Bibliometric Study of Italian Academies

The top 100 most-cited articles in dentistry by authors with Italian affiliation

INTRODUCTION

Analyzing highly-cited articles can provide a retrospective assessment of research evolution and predict future developments. The aim of this study was to carry out a bibliometric analysis of the 100 most-cited articles in dentistry by authors with an Italian affiliation.

EVIDENCE ACQUISITION

All the articles published in journals indexed under the Scopus category "Dentistry" and with at least one author affiliated to any Italian institution were searched in September 2022. The 100 most-cited articles were selected and relevant data were extracted and summarized. The analysis of co-authorship at country level and co-occurrence of keywords was carried out.

EVIDENCE SYNTHESIS

The 100 most-cited articles were published between 1976 and 2020. The number of citations ranged from 235 to 1683, with a mean of 361. The series included 25 citation classics (>400 citations). The majority of articles were classified as expert opinion/narrative reviews (N.=47). Almost half of the articles refer to three predominant disciplines which were implantology, periodontology and restorative dentistry. Only two articles were single-authored. In 30 articles, all the authors had an Italian affiliation and the US was the most frequent country for non-Italian authors. Only one article was published in journals owned by a non-Italian publisher.

CONCLUSIONS

The present series of highly-cited articles confirms the important role of Italy in dental research. We found an absence of correlation between the level of evidence and the number of citations and a non-homogeneous distribution of highly-cited papers in the different dental disciplines. The majority of articles included in the series shared international co-authorship and were published in high-impact journals.

Systematic Reviews in Dental Research: A Bibliometric Analysis of Contribution from Indian Dentists During 1948-2022

AIMS AND OBJECTIVE

Although systematic reviews (SRs) are the backbone of evidence-based dentistry, they have appeared infrequently in dental literature and their importance may not be recognized by dentists. So, this study aimed to identify SRs in dental research contributed by Indian dentists to the PubMed database during 1948-2022 and describes their epidemiological and descriptive characteristics.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

An electronic search of the PubMed database was performed from 1948 through September 2022. SRs were considered for inclusion if they were related to oral health and published by Indian dentists as the first author. From this collection, the following characteristics of SRs were described: name of the journal, type of journal (e.g., general dentistry, specialty dentistry, non-dental), year of publication, author's affiliation, and focus of the SR.

RESULTS

The search identified 439 SRs in dentistry indexed in the PubMed database during 1948-2022. There were only 5 SRs published from 2007 to 2010 with maximum publications during the year 2021 (n = 114; 25.97%). About 32.35% of the SRs (n = 142) were published in 10 journals with the maximum contribution from the Journal of Conservative Dentistry (n = 22; 5.01%). The majority of the SRs were published in the field of Pedodontics and Preventive Dentistry (n = 72; 16.40%), followed by Conservative Dentistry and Endodontics (n = 63; 14.35%).

CONCLUSION

The contribution of SRs in dental research from India is small but growing. There is a clear need to improve SRs in dental research qualitatively and quantitatively.

Scholarly Output in Peruvian National Dentistry according to Gender Disparity: A 10-Year Bibliometric Study

Objective. To evaluate Peruvian scientific publications in dentistry according to sex disparity (2011-2020). Methods. This was a retrospective bibliometric study. The unit of analysis was made up of Peruvian dentistry publications indexed in the Scopus database during the last 10 years. Records with metadata (410) corresponding to the period 2011-2020 were downloaded and standardized and refined by analyzing the metadata. The search strategy was developed based on the individual profiles of each Peruvian institution that has a dental school or college. It was evaluated according to the AF-ID of each institution in the Scopus database. In addition, the information provided by the Scopus SciVal tool was used. Finally, publications, impact, and collaboration indicators were used, such as total number per document, per author, average of citations, $h$ -index, collaboration rate, number of institutions, the Source Normalized Impact per Paper indicator, the CiteScore, and the Scopus Field-Weighted Citation Impact. Results. The greatest increase was evident in 2018, with 2019 and 2020 being the maximum peak of scientific publication growth. However, sustained growth has not been evidenced in relation to the female sex. The analysis of coauthorship by the authors revealed four large clusters, of which the first three were represented by male researchers, such as Arriola-Guillen L., Mayta-Tovalino F., and Mendoza-Azpur G., and one by a female, Guerrero María E. Evaluating the national scientific publication in dentistry according to the CiteScore, it was found that most of the publications (145) from Peru were published in Q4 journals, although 90 manuscripts were published in Q1 journals. Conclusions. The Peruvian national dental publication in the last 10 years was mainly supported by male dentists, which invites us to reflect on the need to equalize opportunities so that female researchers can also reduce these gaps.

A bibliometric analysis of top 100 most-cited articles in dentistry with author(s) affiliated with Taiwan institutes

BACKGROUND

Citation analysis can provide a historical perspective in the advancement of research, evolution, and areas of research. Taiwan exhibits rigorous academic and scientific activities in dentistry; however, based on its empirical contribution in research, there is no report in the literature analyzing the top-cited articles published by authors affiliated with Taiwan institutes. The purpose of this study was to analyze the citation characteristics of the top 100 most-cited articles published in dentistry with author(s) affiliated with Taiwan institutes.

METHODS

The Scopus database was used to search the qualified articles with authors from Taiwan published in journals. The bibliometric parameters, including year of publication, study design, research fields, citation half-life, self-citation, institute of origin, and international collaboration were analyzed. Multivariable linear regression in generalized linear model was used to find associate factors related to trends of citation counts.

RESULTS

The top 100 most-cited articles were determined by analyzing 7667 articles from the Scopus database. The steadily increasing trends were observed in the number and percentage of articles of author(s) affiliated with Taiwan institutes to the world. The most common study design was the in vitro research (55 %). The majority citation half-life is 3-5 and 6-8 years, and self-citation counts were between one to five times (n = 26). The percentage of international collaboration of these most-cited articles was 32%, and the main collaboration country was the United States. By using multivariable linear regression in the generalized linear model, the associated factors, study design, and self-citation were significantly associated with the escalating trends of citation counts.

CONCLUSION

This is the first study that provides valuable information in the dentistry regarding the academic activity, and empirical contribution of author(s) affiliated with Taiwan institutes in the world. The trends of citation characteristics were significantly correlated with study design and self-citation of these articles.

Research Hotspots and Development Trends on Recycled Construction Materials in Pavement Engineering: A Bibliometric Evaluation

Road recycling technology is gradually becoming a research focus in road construction due to natural resource shortages. It is therefore necessary to carry out deep and extensive analysis of the huge amount of publications in the research area of recycling technology in road construction. Based on three databases (Web of Science, Compendex and Scopus) and VOSviewer visualization software, this study conducts a bibliometric analysis of the literature in the field of recycled construction materials in pavement engineering. The global research publications were reviewed to quantitatively identify the literature characteristics. A number of publications, document types, research areas and keywords were used to achieve the general statistics of this reviewed literature. H-index, publication number and citations per publication were used to evaluate the academic contributions by country, institution and journal. The results show that the most productive country and institution for publications are the USA and Chang’an University from China, respectively, followed by China and Wuhan University of Technology. In recent years, researchers have generally paid attention to two main approaches: the application of rubber modified asphalt and the performance enhancement of recycled pavement.

SARS-CoV-2 Disease Adjuvant Therapies and Supplements Breakthrough for the Infection Prevention

The SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) is a high-risk viral agent involved in the recent pandemic stated worldwide by the World Health Organization. The infection is correlated to a severe systemic and respiratory disease in many cases, which is clinically treated with a multi-drug pharmacological approach. The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate through a literature overview the effect of adjuvant therapies and supplements for the SARS-CoV-2 infection. The research has analyzed the advantage of the EK1C4, by also assessing the studies on the resveratrol, vitamin D, and melatonin as adjuvant supplements for long hauler patients' prognosis. The evaluated substances reported important benefits for the improvement of the immune system and as a potential inhibitor molecules against SARS-CoV-2, highlighting the use of sartans as therapy. The adjuvant supplements seem to create an advantage for the healing of the long hauler patients affected by chronic symptoms of constant chest and heart pain, intestinal disorders, headache, difficulty concentrating, memory loss, and tachycardia.

Scientific Trends in Clinical Research on Zirconia Dental Implants: A Bibliometric Review

Background: The clinical use of zirconia implants has been shown to increase steadily due to their biological, aesthetic, and physical properties; therefore, this bibliometric study aimed to review the clinical research and co-authors in the field of zirconia dental implant rehabilitation. Methods: We searched Scopus and Web of Science databases using a comprehensive search strategy to 5 October 2020, and independently paired reviewers who screened studies, and collected data with inclusion criteria restricted to clinical research only (either prospective or retrospective). Data on article title, co-authors, number of citations received, journal details, publication year, country and institution involved, funding, study design, marginal bone loss, survival rate, failure, follow-up, and the author’s bibliometric data were collected and evaluated. Results: A total of 29 clinical studies were published between 2008 and 2020 as 41.4% were prospective cohort studies and 48.3% originated from Germany. Most of the included studies had been published in Clinical Oral Implant Research (n = 12), and the most productive institution was the Medical Center of University of Freiburg. The author with the largest number of clinical studies on zirconia implants was Kohal R.J. (n = 10), followed by Spies B.C. (n = 8). Conclusions: This study revealed that zirconia implants have been more prominent in the last ten years, which is a valuable option for oral rehabilitation with marginal bone loss and survival rate comparable to titanium dental implants.