Eye neoplasms research: a bibliometric analysis from 1966 to 2012.

PURPOSE: To calculate the growth rate of the biomedical literature on eye neoplasms and to assess which journals, countries, and continents are the most productive. METHODS: PubMed was used to search for articles published from 1966 to 2012. Total number of articles per year was fitted to a linear equation as well as an exponential curve. To identify the core journals and predict the number of journals containing articles related to eye neoplasms, Bradford's law was applied. For each country and each continent, the gross domestic product (GDP) index (publications per $1 billion USD of GDP) and the population index (publications per million inhabitants) were calculated. RESULTS: A total of 27,943 references were retrieved. The growth in the number of publications showed a linear increase with a yearly average growth rate of 2.08%, which was lower than for the whole PubMed database (3.59%). Using Bradford's law, 17 core journals were identified, among which 2 journals produced more than 1000 articles (JAMA Ophthalmology and American Journal of Ophthalmology). Europe was the most productive continent, followed by North America and Asia. The United States was by far the predominant country in number of publications, followed by Germany and the United Kingdom. However, population and GDP indexes showed that absolute production did not reflect the production per capita or economic efficiency. CONCLUSIONS: This bibliometric study provides data contributing to a better understanding of the eye neoplasm research field.