Neurosurgical research in Pakistan: Trends of publication and quality of evidence

Objective: To analyze the output and quality of neurosurgical research published from Pakistan in indexed peer reviewed journals. Methods:Indexed peer reviewed publications from 2003 to 2008 were searched for neurosurgical contributions from Pakistan. The retrieved articles were evaluated to analyze the trends of publication and quality of evidence. Results: Sixty-two neurosurgical research papers (10.3 per year, range 8-13) were published from Pakistan during the study period. Twenty-four (38.7%) publications were the contribution of just four primary authors, 25 (45.3%) of the publications were original research articles and 30 (48.4%) were either case reports or case series, and 38 (61.3%) of all the publications were from just three institutions in the country. Majority of publications were pertaining to neurooncology (n = 23, 37.1%) and neurosurgical trauma (n = 16, 25.8%). Overall, 48 (77.4%) papers were published in local indexed journals and only 14 (22.6%) in international journals. There were no basic science studies, and no papers offering level 1 or 2 evidence were published during the study period. Conclusion: Neurosurgical research in Pakistan over the past six years has been unsatisfactory, both in terms of number and quality of publications. Analysis of six year publications also did not show any significant improvement in research trends