Table 1.

Recommended Protocols for Bibliometric Analysis in Medical Research.

Category	Best practice	Rationale
Database Selection	Use SCI-EXPANDED instead of full WOSCC for medical topics.	Avoids noise from non-SCI sub-databases (e.g., AHCI, CPCI-SSH) that may distort citation metrics
Search Strategy	Avoid Topic Search (TS) for broad terms; refine using Title (TI), Abstract (AB) and Author Keywords (AK).	TS often captures off-topic papers due to Keyword Plus (KP) mismatches.
Keyword Optimization	Include term variants (singular/plural, synonyms) and wildcards (*).	Ensures comprehensive coverage of the field (e.g., “immunotherap*” captures “immunotherapy”/”immunotherapies”).
Software Parameters	Display the specific parameter settings of the software	Ensure reproducibility of results