Historical Roots of Modern Plastic Surgery: A Cited Reference Analysis Prior to 1960

Background and Purpose

Highly cited publications are referred to as citation classics and can signify important contributions to a discipline.  Although, citation classics in plastic surgery have been identified, none were published prior to 1960.  Citation classics in earlier periods may contain the historical roots or intellectual origins of the field^1,2.  We set out to identify these scholarly works and analyze their characteristics.

 

Methods

A novel technique of citation analysis, referred to as Reference Publication Year Spectroscopy (RPYS) was employed to analyze the literature³.  The spectrogram revealed distinct peaks prior to 1960, which corresponded to 20 citation classics.  These twenty references were then analyzed with respect to historical context, topic of interest, anatomical region, originality, and if authors were named for their findings (eponyms).

 

Results

20 distinct citation classics (published from 1851 to 1959) were identified accounting for 430 literature citations.  Salmon’s “Arteres de la Peau” was the most cited reference, followed by Gillies’ “Principles of Plastic Surgery” and Neuber’s “Fat Grafting.”  The theme of angiosomes was highly represented. The majority of citation classics dealt with reconstruction of acquired defects (37%) and primarily focused on the head and neck regions (45%).  35% of clinical studies were noted for their originality, and five studies earned their authors eponymous distinctions.

 

Conclusion

The roots of modern plastic surgery began in the late 19th century with early efforts to describe cutaneous vasculature.  Historical studies that either establish principles or lead to an advancement in our reconstructive methods have the best chance of achieving classical status.

 

References

1. Bornmann L, Marx W. The wisdom of citing scientists. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology. 2014;65(6):1288-1292.
2. Marx W, Bornmann L. Change of perspective: bibliometrics from the point of view of cited references—a literature overview on approaches to the evaluation of cited references in bibliometrics. Scientometrics. 2016;109(2):1397-1415.
3. Marx W, Bornmann L, Barth A, Leydesdorff L. Detecting the historical roots of research fields by reference publication year spectroscopy (RPYS). Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology. 2014;65(4):751-764.