Classic and near-classic articles in the dermatologic literature

Background: Only a small fraction of articles published in the dermatologic literature are cited frequently. Articles cited at least 100 times are kno wn as "citation classics" and have been previously discussed. The nature of dermatologic articles cited fewer than 100 times but still much more frequ ently cited than average has not been clearly elucidated. Objective: To identify the source, authorship, and citation history of orig inal articles published in 24 dermatologic journals that were cited more th an 25 times. Design: We analyzed a citation database provided by the Institute for Scien tific Information. We identified the journal of publication, authorship, an d country of authorship for all original articles cited at least 25 times a nd published from 1982 to 1996 in 24 dermatologic journals. Main Outcome Measure: Source of most frequently cited dermatologic articles . Results: Only 2139 (6.45%) of all original articles were cited more than 25 times. Articles published in 4 of 24 journals accounted for the most frequ ently cited articles. Only 18 (0.13%) of more than 13 500 first authors pub lished at least 5 articles that were cited more than 25 times. Conclusions: Few articles are cited at least 25 times, and few persons are first authors of multiple articles in the dermatologic literature cited at least that frequently.