Charles Dotter & the birth of Interventional Radiology: A sleeping beauty with a restless sleep.

Charles Dotter is described as the father of interventional radiology, a medical specialty born at the cross-border of radiology and cardiology. Dotter’s landmark paper published in 1964 was poorly cited until 1979 and can be considered from a scientometric point of view as a sleeping beauty (SB). SB are article that suffer of a delayed recognition. This paper, will explore the bibliometric characteristics of this case study and the accuracy of Van Raan’s criteria to define SB in science will be discussed. “The prince” is identified through citation network analysis, and the sleeping period has been documented as a restless sleep period with science and social controversy that could be documented in publications databases by differentiating bibliographic references. Therefore, a category of SB –like paper should be introduced. Theses observations should open new avenues in identifying “sleeping beauties”.