ABSTRACT
Introduction: The direct anterior approach (DAA) has garnered a lot of attention and surgical popularity for total hip arthroplasty in recent years. Some of the postulated advantages for the increase in popularity of this approach include better pain control and earlier recovery in the immediate postoperative period. The amount of literature available on this topic has rapidly increased over the last 10 years requiring the need for an updated guide to best navigate the topic. Methods: The ISI Web of Knowledge database was used to search for research articles regarding the DAA surgical technique. The Boolean operative that yielded the largest search results was ([direct anterior approach hip] OR [anterior hip] OR [anterior hip arthroplasty] NOT [spine]). Results: 92% of the highest cited articles on the DAA were published within the past two decades. One author, Keggi K, published 4 or more articles, with the highest citation average (110.5 citations). Recent articles were more strongly correlated with higher citation counts (R 2 = 0.21 v. 0.19). Conclusion: This review clearly outlines the increasing trend in the most influential publications regarding DAA being published in the past two decades. This review allows interested surgeons to understand the historic literature pertaining to this topic. This review can assist future researchers in identifying trends in UKA as well as help clinicians navigate this body of literature.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Unicondylar knee arthroplasty (UKA) is an accepted treatment option for unicompartmental femorotibial degeneration and is gaining in popularity. The goal of this review is to evaluate the top 50 most cited articles pertaining to UKA to better help surgeons understand the trends, identify influential articles, and navigate this body of literature more effectively. METHODS: The Institute for Scientific Information Web of Knowledge database was used to identify all articles related to UKA. The initial screening was based on the number of citations for each article. The list was then refined to include only peer-reviewed original articles, review articles, or editorials. Data were extracted from the articles to rank the articles in the descending order from the most citations to the least. RESULTS: Initial search yielded 1844 articles. Fifty were identified to match the study criteria. The highest ranked article was cited a total of 463 times, whereas the lowest ranked article was cited 101 times. The average total number of citations per publication was 162. The earliest article on the list was published in 1978. The majority of publications assessed long-term outcomes of UKA (n = 6, 52%). The majority of articles were graded a level of evidence of III (n = 21 42%), whereas only 3 articles were graded a level I. CONCLUSIONS: This review provides a quantitative analysis of the most-cited literature pertaining to UKA, which has a paucity of level I studies.
