Changes in stroke research productivity: A global perspective.

Background: While stroke is the second leading cause of death worldwide, little work has been done to quantify the growth and progress of stroke publications. The purpose of this study is to quantitatively analyze trends in the stroke literature over the past 12 years, specifically examining changes in worldwide productivity and study methodology.

Methods: The study was a retrospective bibliometric analysis of all stroke articles published between 1996 and 2008 indexed in MEDLINE. Country of origin, MEDLINE-defined methodology, specialty of the first author, and funding sources (for US articles) were recorded. Growth was analyzed by using linear and nonlinear regression.

Results: Total articles numbered 32,309 during the study period, with leading global contributors including the United States with 8795 (27.2%) articles, Japan with 2757 (8.5%) articles, and the United Kingdom with 2629 (8.1%) articles. Growth globally and in the United States followed a linear pattern at 209.9 and 56.2 articles per year, respectively (both P < 0.001). Review articles and clinical trials numbered 5932 (18.4%) and 2934 (9.1%), respectively. Clinical trials followed an exponential growth pattern of 7.7% per year (P < 0.001). Regarding specialty influence, pain management and rehabilitation had the largest proportional growth in clinical trials from 4 to 51 articles.

Conclusions: Within the stroke literature, we observed continued growth worldwide, sustained growth in the United States, and a steady increase in the number of clinical trials, especially by pain management and rehabilitation.