Trends in Foot and Ankle Publications

Abstract

Category: Ankle; Other Introduction/Purpose: Scientific publication and original articles remain the primary method of sharing scientific findings and thus advancing the knowledge base of that subject. These articles have the potential to reinforce or change current practice. Despite the value of these publications, little research has gone into surveying what topics are being published. Our goal was to identify and characterize the most common topics of publication in current foot and ankle literature. Methods: To determine the rate of publications in the literature, we reviewed all published articles in a 3.5-year period (January 2016 - June 2019) in three foot and ankle specific journals: Foot and Ankle International, Foot and Ankle Orthopaedics, and Foot and Ankle Surgery. We then sorted these articles into the topic of the article to identify the four most common domains of publication. These domains were further characterized by level of evidence as well as citations/year. Results: A total of 845 articles were published in the 3.5-year study period. During this time, the four most published topics in foot and ankle literature were hallux valgus (10%), arthroplasty (9%), ankle fracture (7.5%), and achilles pathology (6.4%). These four subjects accounted for 280/845 articles (33%). The average level of evidence for articles on hallux valgus, arthroplasty, ankle fracture, and Achilles pathology were 3.3 (3.1, 3.4, 3.4, and 3.4 respectively), and the average number of citations/year for these articles was 2.6 (2.3, 3.0, 2.3, and 3.1 respectively). Based on our study there is no correlation between level of evidence and number of citations. Conclusion: Despite the wide variety of cases (176 unique CPT codes) performed by an orthopedically trained foot and ankle surgeons, a small subset of publications represent a significant portion of scientific publication within the field.