100 most cited articles in fracture surgery.

Citation density is an important method by which to assess an article's impact on a field. We sought to identify the 100 most cited articles in fracture surgery, and highlight their characteristics. We used the ISI web of science's cited reference search to identify the most cited articles in orthopedic surgery. We then used multiple reviewers to identify the articles that pertained specifically to fracture surgery. Differences were resolved by discussion. We then characterized the level of evidence, decade of publication, type of design, and citation density for each article. All of the top 100 articles were published in English, the majority (69%) originated from the United States. Sixty-six percent of articles were clinical articles; the remainder were basic science. The most represented topic in the top 100 was hip fractures (12/100 articles). Over half of the clinical articles were level IV. Level of evidence was negatively correlated with date of publication. Citation number-based identification of important papers will help current practitioners gain insight into past and current trends in their respective fields and provides the foundation for further investigations.