Top 100 Highly Cited Articles on Rhinoplasty between 2001 and 2020: A Bibliometric and Visualized Analysis

Zhou YC, Zhu YL, Cai Z, Chen ZH, Cui W, You XB, Wang JX.

What this paper says

An analysis of the 100 most cited rhinoplasty articles from 2001 to 2020 found that only five were the highest grade of evidence, and that Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, the United States and a small group of authors dominate the field.

Overview

Bibliometrics counts and maps publications to describe what a research field is actually producing. The authors pulled data from the Web of Science Core Collection on 7 April 2021, ranked rhinoplasty articles by citations, and analyzed the top 100. Collaboration patterns and keywords were mapped with VOSviewer software.

Sections of note

The 100 articles comprised 86 original research articles and 14 reviews.
Average citations were 77 per article, range 50 to 202.
The single most cited article, 202 citations, was published by Toriumi in 2006.
The most common level of evidence was level IV, in 24 articles. Only five articles were level I.
The 100 articles appeared in 24 journals. Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery carried 49 of them with 4013 citations.
The United States produced the most highly cited articles; the University of Texas System led institutions with 16 articles and 1166 citations.
R. J. Rohrich published 14 of the articles with 1025 citations. Rohrich, R. K. Daniel and B. Guyuron are named the most influential authors.
Prominent keywords included cleft lip and palate, FACE-Q, the NOSE scale, quality of life and the RHINO scale.

What it means for a patient

The most influential rhinoplasty literature rests largely on case series and expert reports rather than randomized trials.
Patient reported outcome questionnaires appear repeatedly among the top keywords, showing the field has shifted toward asking patients how they feel and breathe.
Citation counts measure attention, not correctness. The analysis covers publications only and reports nothing about clinical results.

Why this paper matters

This maps who and what shapes rhinoplasty thinking, and it names the field's evidence problem plainly: five level I studies among the hundred most cited. The authors also state that global cooperation needs strengthening, since output concentrates in a few countries and institutions.

Terms

Bibliometric analysis: statistical study of publications, citations and authorship patterns.
Citation count: how many later papers reference a given article.
Level of evidence: a ranking of study strength, where I is strongest and V is expert opinion.
Web of Science: a database indexing journals and their citation links.
FACE-Q and NOSE scale: validated questionnaires measuring facial appearance satisfaction and nasal blockage.

Summary written by rhinoplasty.cc from the abstract, 2026-09-09; not medical advice. The authors' own abstract follows.

From the abstract

“The authors performed a bibliometric and visualized analysis of the top 100 highly cited articles in rhinoplasty published between 2001 and 2020, to provide researchers with the present research status and the potential directions. Methods: The authors obtained data from the Web of Science Core Collection on April 7,…”

Excerpt; the full abstract is on PubMed.