Web of science core collection database

This bibliometric analysis aimed to identify and analyse the key papers in the field of ankle surgery, by identifying the most cited articles.
In April 2020, the Web of Science Core Collection Database (Clarivate Analytics) was searched for articles with the key terms ‘ankle AND surgery’ within the field of orthopaedics. This initial search returned 5288 publications, and the top 50 publications were chosen when ranked by number of citations. The inclusion criteria for the bibliometric analysis required that each analysed paper had to refer to an ankle surgical intervention, either in its title or its abstract. This was detailed by the first two authors, whilst the third author would arbitrate, if required, for any incongruities in the inclusion.

To identify studies for analysis, the Web of Science Core Collection Database (Clarivate Analytics) was queried. Two searches of abstracts, keywords, and article titles were run: one using the search term “clubfoot” and a second using the term “Ponseti.” Results were filtered by publication year, from 1902 through 2022. No language restrictions were imposed. The complete metadata for each article were compiled and manually exported on April 25, 2022.
Studies were exported in BibTeX format. The exported studies were then uploaded into Biblioshiny software (K-Synth) in RStudio Cloud (Posit) for data management and analysis. Only the following article types were included in the analysis: case reports, original research, systematic reviews, proceedings papers, and early-access. Letters to the editor, book chapters, and conference abstracts were excluded. Bibliometrix (K-Synth), an R tool of RStudio (version 4.1.3) for comprehensive science mapping analysis, and Biblioshiny, a web-interface for Bibliometrix, were used to import and manage the metadata from Web of Science⁴ .