The 100 top cited articles in the field of digestive endoscopy: from 1950 to 2017.

Background: the present study aimed to describe the characteristics of articles that had the most citations in the field of digestive endoscopy.

Method: articles included were obtained from the Web of Science database, which were selected and ranked according to the number of citations. The characteristics of the 100 most cited articles were then analyzed.

Results: the number of citations of the top 100 of 303,063 eligible papers ranged from 370 to 2,866. The most cited paper was a study of colorectal cancer prevention using colonoscopic polypectomy. The most common topics discussed by the top 100 papers included colonoscopy (n = 33) and upper gastrointestinal endoscopy (n = 23), with most of the papers focusing on diagnosis (n = 24) and treatment (n = 15).

Conclusion: by identifying the most influential publications, the present study could serve as a guide toward further development in the area of digestive endoscopy.