Abstract

Objective: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common cardiac arrhythmia in adults. Anticoagulation significantly reduces stroke and related mortality in AF patients. This study conducted a bibliometric analysis of the top 50 most-cited articles in the literature on dabigatran, the first new-generation oral anticoagulant. Methods: We searched the Web of Science for articles with dabigatran in the title. The top 50 most cited articles (T50) were selected. Characteristics of the articles (such as author, source, institution, country, scientific category, number of citations, citation density, and citations per article) were analyzed. Results: T50 had a total of 33,301 citations. The average number of citations per article was 666. The United States of America (USA) was the most prolific country in T50, with 36 papers and 26,043 citations. Wallentin Lars from Uppsala University was the most prolific author, with 14 articles and 13,532 citations. Circulation was the most prolific journal, with 11 articles. Conclusions: We analyzed the classic publications on dabigatran, the first new-generation oral anticoagulant. The most prolific country was the USA, author was Wallentin, and journal was Circulation. Researchers and clinicians can easily access influential publications by reviewing our study.