Hepatitis C, the most severe of the
five known hepatitis viruses, is the most common blood-borne infection
in the United States. People with hepatitis C can experience liver
cirrhosis, liver cancer, and liver failure. The top 25 papers in
hepatitis C research over the past decade cover a wide variety of
issues, from genotyping to treatment. Methods for genotyping or
testing various aspects of the virus covered in this listing include
the polymerase chain reaction, phylogenetic analysis of nucleotide
sequences, branched DNA signal amplification, and the line probe
assay. Nomenclature systems for the various viral genotypes are also
discussed. The predominant treatment papers involve clinical trials of
interferon alpha-2b alone or in combination with ribavirin. Other
topics in the top 25 include: the natural history of
community-acquired hepatitis C; transmission of the virus from mothers
to infants; immune selection; re-infection; the status of
post-transfusion risk factors; association of hepatitis C with other
illnesses, such as type II cryoglobulinemia and membranoproliferative
glomerulonephritis; and the pathogenic role of intrahepatic cytotoxic
lymphocytes.
Methodology
To construct this database,
papers were extracted based on title- and author-supplied keywords for
Hepatitis C. The keywords used were as follows:
HEPATITIS-C
HEPATITIS-C-ASSOCIATED
HEPATITIS-C-INFECTED
HEPATITIS-C-RELATED
HEPATITIS-C-VIRUS
AUTHOR KEYWORDS STEM-SEARCHED
HEPATITIS C
HEPATITIS-C
The baseline time span for this database
is 1992 - 2002. The resulting database contained 17,872 papers; 35,896 authors;
140 countries; 1,003 journals; and 7,780 institutions.
Rankings
Once the database was in place,
it was used to generate the lists of top 25 papers, authors, journals,
institutions, and nations, covering a time span of 1992 - 2002 (weeks
1-26).
The top 25 papers are ranked
according to total cites. Rankings for author, journal, institution,
and country are listed in three ways: according to total cites, total
papers, and total cites/paper. The paper thresholds used to determine
scientist, institution, country, and journal rankings according to
total cites/paper were as follows: 46, 33, 33, and 30, respectively.
