Comparison of Attention for Cancer Research on Social Media Versus Academia: An Altmetric Score Analysis

Abstract

Background: Bibliometric and Altmetric analyses highlight key publications. The role of social media platforms in the promotion, dissemination and display of medical literature has improved greatly over the last few years. The hypothesis is that highly cited cancer articles would correlate positively with Altmetric attention scores (AAS). 'Cancer' as a search term was entered into Thomson Reuters Web of Science database to identify all articles in the last decade. The 50 most cited articles were analysed by topic, journal, author, year, and AAS. By bibliometric criteria, eligible articles numbered 1,465,400 and the median (range) citation number was 3601.5 (2556-23725). The most cited article in the top 50 list was "Global cancer statistics" published by Jemal A. et al. in 2011, while the highest AAS was published by Siegel RL.et.al ., "Cancer Statistics", in 2017. New England Journal of Medicine published most articles (n= 14). Positive correlation was between average citations per year and AAS (r= 0.491 p< 0.01) but no correlation was found between citation number and AAS (r= 0.184 p= 0.2). Bibliometric and Altmetric analysis provide important but different perspectives regarding article impact. Our findings provide useful information on the dissemination of cancer research among the general public.