On 27-11-2021 I looked up in the Scopus citation database (www.scopus.com) how often my articles, which have been published in English-language journals, have been mentioned (cited) by other authors in their publications. I found data from 128 of my 135 articles (published up to 27-11-2021 in this category. I have not included the 6 most recent articles in the study, because the period after those was too short to get an impression of  citations. Nevertheless, the article 'Fragrances: Contact allergy and other adverse effects', which appeared in the 2020 January/February issue of Dermatitis, already had 9 citations in November 2021. This practical review article was greatly appreciated by the members of the of the American Contact Dermatitis Society and was elected ‘2020 Dermatitis Review Article of the Year’. 

In total, the 122 articles have been cited in 3688 publications by other authors up to November 27, 2021. This means that the citation index (the number of citations divided by the number of articles) is 30.2 (3688:122). In other words: on average, each publication led to 30 citations in other scientific articles. I can say without any hesitation that this is a very high figure: my articles (at least in their entirety) are apparently highly appreciated and are sometimes in the top of the most read articles.

The numbers of citations per article are listed below. These range from 0 (fortunately only 2 times) to 232. The median is 17: half of the articles were cited 17 times or less and the other half were cited 17 times or more. Fourteen articles scored between 30 and 50 citations, 17 between 51 and 100, and 6 above 100, with the highest number being 232.

Number of times articles were cited, per individual publication

The publication with 232 citations concerns a review article from 1997 on side effects of perfume raw materials (fragrances), which I wrote together with Prof. dr. Peter Frosch from Heidelberg. At the time, it was the largest article ever published in Contact Dermatitis at 29 pages. I have now broken my own record with the article 'Patch testing in drug reaction with eosinophilia and systemic symptoms (DRESS): a literature review', which comes out on 37 pages. My article about henna tattoos from 2013 was also quite large at 25 pages. 'Colleague De Groot is a man of many (written) words', wrote Auguste Glastra on the occasion of the Leo Dermatology Award, which I won in 2000, and nothing has changed in that: I tend to be verbose (in writing, that is, not so much in speech) and have a desire for completeness .

Recently Prof. dr. Jeanne Duus Johansen from Copenhagen, the editor-in-chief of Contact Dermatitis, told me that my review articles are among the top 10 most cited articles from Contact Dermatitis every year. She (therefore) kindly asked me not to retire just yet (which I was about to do at that moment; I later changed my mind!).

The Top 10 most cited articles are listed below. The complete list can be found here.

Top-10 List van publications with numbers of citations (Scopus)

Citations  Publication

232          De Groot AC, Frosch PJ. Adverse reactions to fragrances. A clinical review. Contact Dermatitis 1997;36:57-86

180          De Groot AC, Bruijnzeel DP, Bos JD, van der Meeren HLM, van Joost Th, Jagtman BA, Weijland JW. The allergens                   in cosmetics. Arch Dermatol 1988;124:1525-1529

128          De Groot AC. Contact allergy to cosmetics: causative ingredients. Contact Dermatitis 1987;17:26-34

118          De Groot AC, Flyvholm M-A, Lensen GJ, Menné T, Coenraads PJ. Formaldehyde releasers: relationship to                               formaldehyde contact allergy. I. Contact allergy to formaldehyde and inventory of formaldehyde-releasers.                           Contact Dermatitis 2009;61:63-85

103          De Groot AC. Propolis: a review of properties, applications, chemical composition, contact allergy, and other                       adverse effects. Dermatitis 2013;24:263-282

102          De Groot AC, Liem DH, Nater JP, van Ketel WG. Patch tests with fragrance materials and preservatives. Contact                     Dermatitis 1985;12:87-92

95            De Groot AC. Side-effects of henna and semi-permanent ‘black henna’ tattoos: a full review. Contact Dermatitis                   2013;69:1-25

84            De Groot AC. The frequency of contact allergy in atopic patients with dermatitis. Contact Dermatitis                                       1990;22:273-277

83            De Groot AC, Weijland JW. Kathon CG: A review. J Am Acad Dermatol 1988;18:350-358

81            De Groot AC, Nater JP, van der Lende R, Rijcken B. Adverse effects of cosmetics and toiletries: a retrospective                       study in the general population. Int J Cosm Science 1988;9:255-259

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