Benchmarking Retinal Detachment
What does analysis of the last five years of the retinal detachment literature tell us about the priorities of the field and the major contributors to it?
Retinal detachment has many causes, from trauma to pathological myopia to complications arising from cataract surgery. It affects between 0.6–1.8 people per 10,000 per year (1) – and about three in every thousand people will experience retinal detachment at one point in their life (2). Treatment options vary by the type and location of the detachment, but include cryopexy and laser photocoagulation, scleral buckling, pneumatic retinopexy and pars plana vitrectomy.
However, the field advances; from smaller gauge vitrectomy needles to smarter approaches to scleral buckling. 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 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 “cone dystrophy”, with results limited to the last five years in humans (for a clinical focus). The data were analyzed in Microsoft Excel 2013.
Top 20 journals by number of publications
Top 20 journals by Impact Factor
Article Type
Publications by Year
Important Words
Fee or Free?
Language of Publications
- D Mitry et al., “The epidemiology of rhegmatogenous retinal detachment: geographical variation and clinical associations”, Br J Ophthalmol, 94, 678–684 (2010). PMID: 19515646.
- RF Gariano and CH Kim. “Evaluation and management of suspected retinal detachment”, Am Fam Physician, 69, 1691–1698 (2004). PMID: 1508604.
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.
