Global trend in articles related to stereotactic published in science citation index-expanded.

BACKGROUND: This is the first article using bibliometrics to study the field of stereotactic related research. This study aims to evaluate the global scientific production of simulation research in the category of "stereotactic" during 1993-2008 and to provide insights on the characteristics of the stereotactic related research patterns, tendencies, and methods that might exist in the papers, as well as in leading countries and institutes.

METHODS: In this study, "stereotactic*" was used as the keyword to search titles, abstracts, and keywords in the database of the Science Citation Index Expanded. All the articles referring to stereotactic during the studied years, were assessed by the following aspects: document type of publication, characteristics of publication outputs, distribution of outputs in journals, publication outputs of source country, source institute, and analysis of words cluster in title, author keywords, and KeyWords Plus.

RESULTS: Eleven document types were found in the total 10 015 publications during 1993-2008. Clinical neurology was the most common category in stereotactic-related research. Neurosurgery listed in categories of clinical neurology and surgery, ranked first. The most productive country and institute were USA and University of Pittsburgh respectively. Words cluster analysis was elaborated regarding the issues of movement disorders, radiosurgery, tumor, and vascular/stroke, it revealed the sharp rise of articles from 1995 until the end of the period covered in "movement disorders" category.

CONCLUSIONS: The results analyzed by this bibliometric method can show the research performance, significant events and major inventors, those attributed to stereotactic neurosurgery, and trend of stereotactic related research.