A Bibliometric Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials in Restorative Dentistry

Objectives: The aim of this study was to quantify the impact of papers reporting Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT) in restorative dentistry, by analyzing citations in databases and other bibliometric indicators, in a period of at least 5 years after their publication.
Methods: PubMed database was searched for RCT studies with dental restorative outcomes published between 2006 and 2010. The number of citations for each study was extracted from Scopus database, considering the period since publication until December 31st, 2015. Studies presenting clinical outcomes not related to restorative dentistry were excluded. After full-text reading, 243 papers were included, with 4865 citations in total. Variables related to the journal, the paper and the RCT itself were collected.
Results: The studies were allocated according to the following subareas: direct restorations (33.3%), dental bleaching (19.7%), bonding agents (14.4%), indirect restorations (10.3%), dentin hypersensitivity (7%), cariology (5.3%), removable dentures (4.5%), pulp capping (2.9%), intra-radicular posts (2.1%) and microabrasion (0.4%). The greatest number of citations was observed for intra-radicular posts (38.4) and pulp capping (24.4). From the 52 journals, which published the included papers, 8 journals held 62% of the included papers and 65.1% of the total number of citations. Most of the studies did not report prior registration of the RCT (99.2%) or the use of guidelines for reporting RCTs (92.6%). Studies with larger sample size and longer follow-up had greater number of citations.
Conclusions: The results of the present work showed a considerable number of papers reporting RCTs published yearly in restorative dentistry, but few publications and few journals held the majority of the citations. Studies with larger samples sizes and longer follow-ups, which were published in journals with higher JCR Impact Factors, seem to have higher impact in the dental literature when considering citations.