The baseline time span for this database is (publication years)
1998-April 30, 2008 from the second bimonthly update (a 10-year + 4-month
period). The resulting database contained 7,808 (10 years) and 2,185 (2
years) papers; 17,918 authors; 81 nations; 918 journals; and 4,673
institutions.
Interviews, first-person essays, and profiles about
people in a wide variety of fields which pertain to
this special topic of Multiple Sclerosis.
OVERVIEW
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic, inflammatory disease of the central
nervous system in which the body's own immune system attacks the myelin
sheath that protects the nerve fibers. According to the
National Multiple Sclerosis Society, MS affects
approximately 2.5 million people worldwide, with 400,000 of these cases
in the US, and 200 new cases diagnosed every week. This month,
ScienceWatch.com examines the literature on MS over the past
decade and over the past two years.
The emerging themes in MS research from over the past decade include the
pathogenesis of lesions, the role of autoantibodies in myelin damage,
axonal transaction, and gene microarray analysis of the lesions themselves.
Other potential players in the development or progress of MS, such as
chemokines, chemokine receptors, and regulatory T cells, are also
discussed. Treatments studied include interferon beta 1-a, interferon beta
1-b, natalizumab, and stem cells. Diagnostic criteria and the increasingly
helpful role of MRI in understanding the disease are also addressed.
Several of the topics on the 10-year list are still prevalent in more
recent research, including the role of chemokines in the pathogenesis of
MS, and treatment with interferons beta 1-a and 1-b. Other drug trials look
at the combination of natalizumab and interferon beta 1-a, fingolimod
(FTY720), and glatiramer acetate. The value of animal models of
experimental allergic encephalomyelitis in understanding MS, genome studies
of risk alleles, the relation of MS to Epstein-Barr virus, the occurrence
of remyelination in certain patients, the cause of axonal degeneration, and
the optimal window of opportunity for treatment are also topics of interest
in the past two years..
Methodology: To construct this database, papers were
extracted for the special topic of Multiple Sclerosis based this search
criteria:
Title=("multiple sclerosis")
Refined by: Document Type=(ARTICLE OR REVIEW)
The baseline time span for this database is (publication years)
1998-April 30, 2008 from the second bimonthly update (a 10-year + 4-month
period). The resulting database contained 7,808 (10 years) and 2,185 (2
years) papers; 17,918 authors; 81 nations; 918 journals; and 4,673
institutions.
Rankings: Once the database was in place, it was used to
generate the lists of top 20 papers (two- and ten-year periods), authors,
journals, institutions, and nations, covering a time span of 1998-April 30,
2008 (second bimonthly period 2008).
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 and
corresponding percentages used to determine scientist, institution,
country, and journal rankings according to total cites/paper, and total
papers respectively are as follows: