Benchmarking Keratoconus
What does analysis of the last five years of the literature on keratoconus tell us about the priorities of the field and the major contributors to it?
Keratoconus is a common corneal disorder where the central or paracentral cornea undergoes progressive thinning and steepening, generating the classic cone-shaped cornea that yields irregular astigmatism. The causes are unclear, but a number of genetic and environmental factors have been implicated.
To provide insight into the past and predictions for the future of the field, a series of metrics were applied to the last five years of the published literature. We asked:
What are the major topics for the field?
Which publications have the greatest impact?
How is the knowledge available online?
Who are the most prolific authors?
PubMed was searched for: keratoconus, with results limited to the last five years, in humans (for a clinical focus). The data were analyzed in Microsoft Excel 2013.
Most frequent topics on PubMed
Publications per year
Fee or free?
Categorization of articles
Articles are categorized according to PubMed criteria. Clinical study represents a clinical evaluation of a drug, device or technique that was not a clinical trial.
Top 12 journals (number of publications)
Journal Impact Factors for 2013
Average impact factor
1 publication
2.182 citations
Articles by geographic location
Most prolific authors (Top 15)
I spent seven years as a medical writer, writing primary and review manuscripts, congress presentations and marketing materials for numerous – and mostly German – pharmaceutical companies. Prior to my adventures in medical communications, I was a Wellcome Trust PhD student at the University of Edinburgh.
