The 50 Highest Cited Papers on Rotator Cuff Tear

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the 50 most cited articles on rotator cuff tear and their characteristics. Methods: Thomson ISI Web of Science was searched for the following search terms "rotator cuff" and "tear." The following characteristics were determined for each article: author(s), year of publication, source journal, geographic origin, article type (and subtype), and level of evidence for clinical articles. Results: The number of citations ranged from 1558 to 253. The 50 most often cited articles were published in 7 journals. The majority of the articles (n = 46) were clinical, with the remaining representing some type of basic science research. Among clinical articles, the case series (n = 23) was the most common article subtype. Nine articles were methodologic in that they proposed a new classification/ scoring system or technique. The most common level of evidence was Level IV (n = 31). Conclusion: This article provides clinicians, researchers, and trainees with a group of articles that should be taken into consideration as building blocks in the treatment of rotator cuff tears.