The Most Influential Publications in Cranioplasty: A 50-Year Citation Analysis

This review aims to identify influential publications discussing cranioplasty using citation count as the primary indicator of impact. A search was conducted using Clarivate's Web of Science Database, resulting in 1752 publications related to cranioplasty. Articles were sorted based on citation count. Further analysis was conducted on parameters including topic, country of origin, affiliated institutions, authorship, publishing journal, references, year of publication, level of evidence, and citation density. The 50 most-cited publications were cited 8089 times, averaging 161.8 citations per article. Our analysis reveals a growing emphasis on biomaterials and their modifications to optimize interventional outcomes. The rise of clinical applications and synthetic material advancements in recent decades has contributed to the increase in impactful publications. This trend is most notable after the year 2000. It is seen a high rate of publications assessing outcomes, complications, and decompressive craniotomies. While these studies have yielded impactful results, the lack of Level of Evidence I studies underscores the need for more extensive clinical studies. As the field continues to evolve, we believe this review will serve as a roadmap of the current state of literature and its future trajectory in investigating interventional outcomes and their clinical impact.