title: Bibliometric profile of the global scientific research on multiple sclerosis (2003-2012).
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The aim of this paper is to analyse the scientific research on multiple sclerosis using a bibliographic analysis of articles published during the period 2003-2012.
  
  
  METHODS
  The items under study were obtained from the Science Citation Index-Expanded (SCI-E) database, which was accessed through the Web of Science (WOS) platform. All records with the term 'multiple sclerosis' in the title, plus all articles published in the journals Multiple Sclerosis and Multiple Sclerosis Journal, were analysed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 9778 articles, with 160,966 citations, were retrieved on multiple sclerosis, and the majority of the articles were published in Multiple Sclerosis Journal (n = 1511). The articles were published in journals belonging to 135 different subject areas, with the greatest number of papers falling under the category of clinical neurology. The countries that published the largest numbers of articles were the United States (US) (n = 2786), Italy (n = 1263), the United Kingdom (n = 1147) and Germany (n = 1018). International collaborations produced 20.4% of the papers.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We emphasise the progressive growth of publications worldwide, the publication of articles in a wide variety of journals covering numerous subject areas, and the research leadership of Western countries, most notably European countries, the US and Canada.
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Historia de la Medicina y de la Ciencia López Piñero, UISYS (Spanish Research Council-CSIC-Universitat de València), Spain Rafael.Aleixandre@uv.es.
authors.forename: Rafael
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Aleixandre-Benavent
authors.affiliation: Universitat de València, Spain.
authors.forename: Adolfo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Alonso-Arroyo
authors.affiliation: Servicio de Pediatría, Hospital General Universitario de Alicante, Spain/Universidad Miguel Hernández, Spain.
authors.forename: Javier
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: González de Dios
authors.affiliation: Universitat de València, Spain.
authors.forename: Antonio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Vidal-Infer
authors.affiliation: Facultad de Medicina y Odontología, Universidad de Valencia, Spain.
authors.forename: María
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: González-Muñoz
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Historia de la Medicina y de la Ciencia López Piñero, UISYS (Spanish Research Council-CSIC-Universitat de València), SpainUniversitat de València, SpainServicio de Pediatría, Hospital General Universitario de Alicante, Spain/Universidad Miguel Hernández, SpainUniversitat de València, SpainFacultad de Medicina y Odontología, Universidad de Valencia, SpainHospital General de Alicante, Spain.
authors.forename: Ángel P
authors.initials: ÁP
authors.lastname: Sempere
mesh_terms: D015706:Bibliometrics; D016206:Databases, Bibliographic / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D009103:Multiple Sclerosis
keywords: Multiple sclerosis; articles; citations; impact factor; scientific collaboration