ObjectiveTo analyse the hundred top-cited articles in obstructive sleep apnea hypopnea syndrome (OSAHS), and summarize the development trend of OSAHS research.MethodsWe searched the Web of Science core collection for all published articles on OSAHS or sleep disorders from January 1st, 1992 to May 23th, 2018. The hundred top-cited articles with the most frequent citation were selected. The publication time, country of origin, journal, institution, professional field of corresponding author, funding type, publication type, etc. were analyzed.ResultsThe hundred top-cited articles were published between 1992 and 2013, with 300～5 980 citations and a total of 65 719 citations. The main types of articles were clinical studies (73 articles), reviews (20 articles), guidelines (4 articles) and basic research (3 articles). Fourteen authors published more than one first-author paper, and fifteen authors published more than one articles as corresponding authors. These authors were distributed across 22 subject areas. The most cited country was the United States (60 articles), and the most cited institution was the University of Wisconsin (10 articles). The hundred top-cited articles were published in 31 journals, most of which were cited less than 1 000 times, and a few articles were cited more than 2 000 times.ConclusionsOSAHS has attracted much attention in respiratory medicine, neurology, epidemiology and other fields, and many articles about clinical research types of OSAHS have been cited. In addition, most of the highly cited articles in the OSAHS field come from the developed countries; our country needs to devote more resources to OSAHS research.