The kiss of death? The effect of being cited in a review on subsequent citations

This article inquires into recent claims that citation in a review article provokes a decline in a paper’s later citation count, these being instead given to the review. Using the Science Citation Index Expanded, we looked at the yearly percentages of lifetime citations of papers published in 1990 first cited in review articles in 1992 and 1995 in the field of biomedical research, and found no significant change to occur following review, regardless of the papers’ citation activity or specialty. Further comparison was made with papers from the field of clinical research, but yielded no meaningful results to support the notion that review articles have any substantial effect on the citation count of the papers they review.