An Update on the Top 100 Most-Cited Articles in Diabetes Research: A Bibliometric Analysis

Background: Diabetes mellitus remains one of the most extensively researched conditions in global health, with a rapidly growing body of literature addressing its prevention, management, and treatment. Characterising highly cited diabetes-related research helps identify research trends, shifts in scientific priorities, and factors associated with citation impact in diabetes research. Objective: This study aimed to perform a bibliometric analysis of the top 100 most-cited diabetes-related records published between 2011 and 2022, in order to describe major scientific contributions and citation patterns in this field. Methods: The search was conducted in April 2023 using the Web of Science Core Collection, Science Citation Index Expanded. Records containing the term “diabetes” were retrieved using the topic field and ranked according to total Web of Science citation count. The top 300 records were screened, and the 100 eligible diabetes-related records were selected for detailed analysis. Extracted data included title, citation count, citation density, PubMed Central (PMC) citations, patent citations, h-index, journal, year of publication, country of origin, study type, funding sources, and authorship patterns. Descriptive and correlational analyses were performed using IBM SPSS Statistics, version 27.0.1.0. Results: The 100 most-cited records accumulated 174,857 citations, with individual citation counts ranging from 832 to 5898. Most records were original research articles (68%), followed by reviews (27%). The most frequently represented journals were Diabetes Care (n = 21), New England Journal of Medicine (n = 20), and The Lancet (n = 9). The United States contributed 45% of the records. A strong positive correlation was observed between total Web of Science citations and PMC citations using both Pearson correlation (r = 0.863) and Spearman rank correlation (ρ = 0.834). The association between total citations and first-author h-index was weak and not statistically significant. Patent citation analysis showed that 41 records were cited in at least one patent. Most records acknowledged funding, with both public-sector and pharmaceutical funders represented among the most frequently reported sources. Conclusions: This study characterises highly cited diabetes-related research published from 2011 to 2022. The findings suggest that clinical trials, reviews, guidelines, collaborative research, patent citation activity, and publication in high-visibility journals were common features of highly cited diabetes-related records, although citation-based indicators should be interpreted with caution.