Top 20 cited Spine Journal articles, 1990-2009

Table 2 Study characteristics of the top 20 cited papers in the spine journal, 1990-2009

Rank	Ref.	Type	Subtype/level of evidence	Subject
1	Ware et al[23]	Clinical	Review/level 4	General health
2	Bigos et al[24]	Clinical	Prospective cohort/level 1	Back injury
3	Deyo et al[25]	Clinical	Review/level 3	Low back pain
4	Hodges et al[28]	Clinical	Prospective cohort/level 3	Low back pain
5	Banwart et al[29]	Clinical	Case series/level 4	Iliac crest bone graft harvest
6	Zdeblick et al[30]	Clinical	Randomized control trial/level 2	Lumbar/lumbosacral fusion
7	Beaton et al[31]	Clinical	Review/level 4	General health
8	Buckwalter et al[32]	Basic Science	Review	Intervertebral disk
9	Spitzer et al[33]	Clinical	Review/level 4	Whiplash disorders
10	Garfin et al[34]	Clinical	Review/level 2	Osteoporotic compression fractures
11	Lieberman et al[35]	Clinical	Case series/level 4	Osteoporotic compression fractures
12	Barr et al[36]	Clinical	Case series/level 4	Osteoporotic compression fractures/spinal tumor
13	Patrick et al[37]	Clinical	Prospective cohort/level 1	Low back pain
14	O'Sullivan et al[38]	Clinical	Randomized control trial/level 1	Spondylolysis/spondylolisthesis.
15	Marras et al[39]	Clinical	Cross-sectional	Occupationally-related low back pain
16	Klenerman et al[27]	Clinical	Cross-sectional	Chronicity of low back pain
17	Olmarker et al[40]	Basic Science	Animal study	Nucleus pulposus induced histological/morphological changes
18	Fritzell et al[41]	Clinical	Randomized control trial/level 1	Lumbar fusion
18	Thompson et al[42]	Basic Science	Biomechanics	Intervertebral disk morphology
20	Bovim et al[43]	Clinical	Cross-sectional	Neck pain