Background: China, as a rapidly developing country with the largest population of cardiologist in the world, has an increasing importance in the field of cardiology. However, the quantity and quality of research production in the field of cardiology is unclear.
Aims: To analyze the characteristics of the high-level articles published on cardiovascular diseases in Mainland China, and to provide information about achievements and development in cardiovascular research.
Methods: We searched the Science Citation Index Expanded for citations of cardiovascular articles originating in mainland China from 2004 to 2015. For the 100 most frequently cited articles (T100), we evaluated the number of citations, publication time, province of origin, journal, impact factor, topic or subspecialty of the research, and publication type.
Results: The most frequently cited article received 703 citations at the most, while 50 at the least (mean 91.6 citations per article). T100 originated from 16 provinces, the plurality (n = 34) being from the Beijing. Sixty-seven percent were published during 2006-2009. The publications were in 29 different journals of which Circulation published the most (n = 14). Leading general medical journals Journal of the American Medical Association (n = 1), Lancet (n = 0) and New England Journal of Medicine (n = 0) featured only 1 published article, despite their extremely high impact factors. Of the T100 articles, there were 50 basic researches, 44 clinical researches, 5 meta-analyses and 1 review article. Clinical researches had the highest mean citations (mean 102.6 citations per article).
Conclusions: This study provides a historical perspective on the scientific progress, and the trends in cardiovascular medicine in Mainland China.