Purpose: This review analyzed the top 100 most-cited thyroid eye disease (TED) papers.
Methods: In November 2022, Scopus was searched for the most highly cited TED works since inception. For each paper, journal of origin and impact factor, corresponding author country and specialty affiliation, citation count, publication year, database-affirmed study funding, and open-access status were extracted.
Results: A total of 76 primary and 24 secondary articles were published between 1969 and 2021 across 29 journals, with a median (range) of 186.5 (133-930) citations. The most cited journal was Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (25 articles; 5126 citations). The most cited article was 'Graves' ophthalmopathy' (Bahn 2010; New England Journal of Medicine; 930 citations). Articles hailed from 10 countries, with most from the United States (38 articles; 9194 citations). Endocrinology (n = 59) and ophthalmology (n = 26) were the most common corresponding authors. Nineteen first authors contributed multiple articles. Only journal impact factor was significantly associated with citation count (p = .0002; ρ = 0.45).
Conclusion: A variety of medical disciplines, Western countries, and study personnel contributed to highly cited thyroid eye disease research. Thus, this research area is not exceedingly informed by any singular perspective. Further, it can be interpreted with increased confidence for their generalizability of results to patients globally.
Keywords: Citation; Graves’ ophthalmopathy; literature; review; thyroid eye disease.