title: National representation in the plastic and reconstructive surgery literature: a bibliometric analysis of highly cited journals.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  In recent years, significant growth has been observed in the field of plastic and reconstructive surgery. However, the national productivity to the field of plastic and reconstructive surgery remains unknown. We therefore intended to reveal national contributions in the field of plastic and reconstructive surgery.
  
  
  METHODS
  Articles published in the 6 highly cited journals in plastic and reconstructive surgery in 2005-2009 were retrieved from the Medline and Web of Science. The number of total articles, the per capita numbers, 5-year impact factors (5y-IF), and citations were tabulated to assess the contribution of different countries.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total number of 5745 articles were published in the 6 journals from 2005 to 2009 worldwide. North America, West Europe, and East Asia were the most productive regions. High-income countries published 79.72% of the total articles. United States (USA) published most of the articles during 2005 to 2009 (2015/5745, 35.07%), followed by United Kingdom, Turkey, Japan, and China. Besides, USA also had the highest total 5y-IF (5010.76), the highest mean 5y-IF (2.49), and the highest total citations (11,788). When normalized to population size, Sweden had the highest number of articles per million persons (12.26), followed by Switzerland (8.02) and Netherlands (7.77).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  USA is the most productive country in the field of plastic and reconstructive surgery. When normalized to population size, some European countries might be more productive.
authors.affiliation: Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Shanghai Changzheng Hospital, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Wen-Jun
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.forename: Hua
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Yin-Fan
authors.initials: YF
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Jian-Lin
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D015706:Bibliometrics; D006801:Humans; D055811:Journal Impact Factor; D011643:Publishing / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D019651:Plastic Surgery Procedures; D013518:Surgery, Plastic