Alzheimer’s disease is brain
disorder that causes severe dementia. It is mainly found in older
people, appearing after age 60. According to the National Institutes
of Health, approximately three percent of people aged 65-74 have
Alzheimer’s disease. Special Topics has analyzed the literature
published on this disease in the past decade. There are four main
themes manifested in the top 20 papers from this time period. The
first is most prevalent: intensive research into the structure and
function of the various alleles of apolipoprotein-E, particularly the
type 4 allele and its role in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s
disease. Closely linked to apolipoprotein-E research is that on the
amyloid peptides. The beta-amyloid peptide, which has been found in
cerebrospinal fluid and other human biological fluids, has the
potential to be used as a diagnostic test as well as a therapeutic
strategy. Several cloning and genetic linkage studies are in the top
20 list as well, examining the potential susceptibility of specific
gene loci for missense mutations which might result in Alzheimer’s
disease. Clinical trials of high-dose tacrine, selegene, and alpha-tocopherol
report promising results for slowing the progression of the disease
and improving the quality of life in affected patients. One paper on
the list discusses the potential role of estrogen in postmenopausal
women for delaying onset of Alzheimer’s disease.
Methodology
To construct this database,
papers were extracted based on a title word search and the supplied keywords for
Alzheimer's Disease. The keywords used were as follows: Alzheimer*.
The baseline time span for this database
is 1992-2002. The resulting database contained 19,057 papers;
29,502 authors; 79 countries; 1,296 journals; and 5,875 institutions.
Rankings
Once the database was in place,
it was used to generate the lists of top 20 papers, authors, journals,
institutions, and nations, covering a time span of 1992-2002.
The top 20 papers are ranked according to total cites. Rankings for author, journal, institution, and country are listed in three ways: according to total cites, total papers, and total cites/paper. The paper thresholds used to determine scientist, institution, country, and journal rankings according to total cites/paper were as follows:
29, 27, 35, and 44, respectively.
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