Time trends of international English language publication activity by vascular surgeons

Objective: Vascular surgical publication activity in the English-language literature during a 10-year interval could have changed. The present study sought to identify which countries have made the most contributions and whether significant shifts have occurred during a 10-year period.

Methods: The study design was a retrospective study. Screening of 15 international journals in PubMed was performed for the 2006 to 2007 and 2016 to 2017 for studies reported by a first author belonging to a vascular surgery department. Data were collected by country regarding the total number of publications, cumulative impact factors (IFs), publications per inhabitant, IFs per inhabitant, and number of randomized controlled trials, meta-analyses, and systematic reviews per country in both periods.

Results: A total of 975 and 1459 reports were found for 2006 to 2007 and 2016 to 2017, respectively. For 2006 to 2007, most reports (n = 400; 41.0%; 1308.3 IFs) had come from the United States, followed by the United Kingdom (n = 168; 17.2%; 462.3 IFs) and The Netherlands (n = 74; 7.6%; 182.6 IFs). For 2016 to 2017, the United States led again with 607 articles (41.6%; 1968.0 IFs), followed by the United Kingdom (n = 119; 8.2%; 640.5 IFs) and The Netherlands (n = 107; 7.3%; 355.6 IFs). Of the top 15 countries, The Netherlands and Sweden contributed the most articles per inhabitant during both periods. During both periods, the United Kingdom reported the most randomized controlled trials, meta-analyses, and systematic reviews.

Conclusions: Vascular surgeons from the United States and United Kingdom were the most productive in terms of the total numbers of English language publications during both periods. However, The Netherlands and Sweden were more active in relation to their population size.