www.PRSGlobalOpen.com 15
I
n 1893, the first description of free fat transfer was
reported by Neuber,
1,2
where he filled soft-tissue
contour defects with small amounts of fat. Despite
a successful outcome, fat grafting as a procedure has
remained relatively dormant until recent years. Now-
adays, it is one of the most commonly performed pro-
cedures carried out by plastic surgeons worldwide.
This renaissance in fat grafting is reflected in the
medical literature, with a rapidly growing subsection
devoted to autologous fat transplantation.
Fat grafting, however, remains a contentious issue
within plastic surgery with no consensus as to how to
optimally perform the procedure. Various methods of
harvesting and transfer have been described, and the
published results vary considerably. Despite a rapidly
growing volume of articles pertaining to fat grafting in
the medical literature, it remains unclear as to which
articles have been the most influential on this field.
A citation is an abbreviated alphanumeric expres-
sion that supports the relevance given by the author
to the work of others on a subject of discussion in
which the citation appears. The citation number of a
published piece of work is the most recognized meth-
od of assessing its relative importance to a specific
area.
3
Although it is the most-used mode of gauging
the influence of a body of work, it is an inherently
Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Wolters
Kluwer Health, Inc. on behalf of The American Society of
Plastic Surgeons. All rights reserved. This is an open-access
article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License,
where it is permissible to download and share the work
provided it is properly cited. The work cannot be changed in
any way or used commercially.
DOI: 10.1097/GOX.0000000000000269
From the *Department of Plastic Surgery, University Hos-
pital Galway, Galway, Ireland; †Department of Vascular
Surgery, University Hospital Galway, Galway, Ireland; and
‡Department of Plastic Surgery, Saint Vincent’s University
Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.
Received for publication September 5, 2014; accepted
November 24, 2014.
Background: There has been substantial rise in the volume of published
works on fat transfer in the medical literature in the past 25 years, and this
is indicative of its growing popularity. However, many unanswered ques-
tions remain, and there is no consensus as to the optimum technique. Con-
sequently, the scientific and clinical research on fat grafting continues to
increase rapidly. The purpose of our study was to perform a bibliometric
analysis of the most-cited articles in fat transfer.
Methods: Through the Web of Science, all articles relating to fat grafting
were identified in the plastic and reconstructive literature. The 100 most-
cited articles were identified and analyzed individually.
Results: Total citations ranged from 35 to 363 and the most-cited paper
by Sidney Coleman was published in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. The
United States produced 46% of the most-cited papers, and the University of
California was the most prolific institution. Twenty-one articles focused on
lipofilling to the face while 14 articles looked at fat grafting to the breast.
Conclusions: The scientific relevance of a published work is reflected in
the number of citations from peers that it receives. Therefore, the 100 most-
cited papers in fat grafting have been the most influential articles on this
field, and they are likely to be the ones that are remembered most. (Plast
Reconstr Surg Glob Open 2015;3:e295; doi: 10.1097/GOX.0000000000000269;
Published online 27 January 2015.)
Cormac W. Joyce MB, BCh*
Kenneth M. Joyce MB, BCh*
George Rahmani MB, BCh*
Stewart R. Walsh, MD†
Sean M. Carroll, MD‡
Alan J. Hussey, MD*
Jack L. Kelly, MD*
Fat Grafting: A Citation Analysis of the
Seminal Articles
Disclosure: The authors have no financial interest
to declare in relation to the content of this article. The
Article Processing Charge was paid for by the authors.
Cosmetic
ORIGINAL ARTICLE