The Top 50 Most-Cited Articles on Acoustic Neuroma.

BACKGROUND: Acoustic neuroma is the most common extra-axial primary cerebellopontine angle tumor in adults. A plethora of studies have been published on acoustic neuroma, but none of the previous works have highlighted the most influential articles. Our objective was to perform a bibliometric analysis of the 50 most-cited articles on acoustic neuroma.

METHODS: We performed a title-specific search on the Scopus database using the following search terms: "acoustic neuroma," "vestibular schwannoma," and "cerebellopontine angle." We recorded the 50 most-cited articles and reviewed them.

RESULTS: The 50 most-cited articles had an average of 175 citations per article. All articles were published between 1980 and 2006, with 1997 the most prolific year, when 7 articles were published. The journals Neurosurgery and Laryngoscope published 10 and 8 of these articles, respectively. The most common study categories were nonsurgical management (17/50) and surgical management (13/50). Studies were predominantly published by otolaryngologists (22/50) and neurosurgeons (14/50). Douglas Kondziolka was the author with the highest number of contributions, with 7 publications. The majority of the articles were produced in the United States (64%).

CONCLUSIONS: Identifying articles on acoustic neuroma with the most impact provides an important overview of the historical development of treatment methods and publication trends related to this condition. A finalized, comprehensive list of the most important works represents an excellent tool that can serve as a guide for evidence-based clinical practice.