Radiology During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Mapping Radiology Literature in 2020.

OBJECTIVES: Our aim was to assess articles published in the field of radiology, nuclear medicine, and medical imaging in 2020, analyzing the linkage of radiology-related topics with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) through literature mapping, along with a bibliometric analysis for publications. METHODS: We performed a search on Web of Science Core Collection database for articles in the field of radiology, nuclear medicine, and medical imaging published in 2020. We analyzed the included articles using VOS viewer software, where we analyzed the co-occurrence of keywords, which represents major topics discussed. Of the resulting topics, literature map created, and linkage analysis done. RESULTS: A total of 24,748 articles were published in the field of radiology, nuclear medicine, and medical imaging in 2020. We found a total of 61,267 keywords, only 78 keywords occurred more than 250 times. COVID-19 had 449 occurrences, 29 links, with a total link strength of 271. MRI was the topic most commonly appearing in 2020 radiology publications, while "computed tomography" has the highest linkage strength with COVID-19, with a linkage strength of 149, representing 54.98% of the total COVID-19 linkage strength, followed by "radiotherapy, and "deep and machine learning". The top cited paper had a total of 1,687 citations. Nine out of the 10 most cited articles discussed COVID-19 and included "COVID-19" or "coronavirus" in their title, including the top cited paper. CONCLUSION: While MRI was the topic that dominated, CT had the highest linkage strength with COVID-19 and represent the topic of top cited articles in 2020 radiology publications.

Dedicated COVID-19 Resource Center in Radiology Journals: Its Citation Metrics and Altmetrics Impact.

BACKGROUND: Since the emergence of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), several journals have established a dedicated resource center for all the articles published on COVID-19. Our study compared the altmetric impact captured by articles published in journals having a COVID-19 resource center. METHODS: We used the Web of Science database to assess radiology journals publishing the most common articles on COVID-19. We used the dimensions database to assess citations received and altmetric attention score for each article. For each article, we extracted several citations received and altmetric attention scores. To account for the variation in strength and exposure between included journals, we adopted a normalization strategy and regression analysis in our statistical analysis. RESULTS: A total of 494 articles were included in the current assessment, including 334 (67.6%) articles published in journals with the dedicated COVID-19 resource center, including European radiology, American Journal of Roentgenology, Radiology, and Journal of the American college of radiology, while European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, Academic Radiology did not have COVID-19 resource center. Journals with COVID-19 resource center had a mean normalized altmetric attention score of 0.38 higher (95% CI 0.25 to 0.50; p< 0.001) and a mean normalized citation count of 6.73 higher (95% CI 3.99 to 9.48; p< 0.001) than those without COVID-19 resource center. CONCLUSION: Radiology journals that provided COVID-19 articles in a dedicated resource center within its homepage had greater attention and higher citation for their COVID-19 articles than journals that did not have such a dedicated resource center.

Assessment of COVID-19-related meta-analysis reporting quality.

BACKGROUND: Meta-analysis of high-quality primary articles represents the top-quality evidence in medical literature. In this project, our aim was to assess the number and quality of COVID-related meta-analysis published since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: The search included the period from January 1, 2020, when the beginning of primary articles on COVID-19, till October 31, 2020. We screened a total of 793 studies. We excluded non-meta-analytic non-COVID-19-related studies. We obtained different characteristics, and we determined the quality of reporting using the AMSTAR tool, an 11-items tool that assesses the content validity and methodological quality of systematic reviews and meta-analysis. RESULTS: A total of 538 studies were included in our assessment. The first meta-analysis included was published in March, while the last one was on the 31st of October. Upon comparing the mean AMSTAR score for meta-analysis published during each month, we found a significant difference (p < 0.001, F = 4.139), where the mean score almost steadily increased since March. CONCLUSION: The urge to publish during the COVID-19 period or any other surge in publishing should not be at the expense of quality.

Assessment of final-year medical students' performance in diagnosing critical findings on chest X-ray.

PURPOSE: Due to the recently emerging shortage in medical staff during the novel corona virus pandemic, several countries have rushed their undergraduate medical students into the emergency department. The accuracy of diagnosing critical findings on X-rays by senior medical students is not well assessed. In this study, we aim to assess the knowledge and accuracy of undergraduate final-year medical students in diagnosing life-threatening emergency conditions on chest x-ray. METHOD: This is a cross-sectional nationwide survey across all medical schools in Jordan. Through an electronic questionnaire, participants were sequentially shown a total of six abnormal X-rays and one normal. For each X-ray, participants were asked to choose the most likely diagnosis, and to grade the degree of self-confidence regarding the accuracy of their answer in a score from 0 (not confident) to 10 (very confident). RESULTS: We included a total of 530 participants. All participants answered at least six out of seven questions correctly, out of them, 139 (26.2%) participants answered all questions correctly. Pneumoperitoneum was the highest correct answer (93.8%), whereas flail chest was the least correctly answered case with only 310 (58.5%) correct answers. Regarding self-confidence for each question, 338 participants (63.8%) reported very high overall self-confidence level. Answers related to tension pneumothorax had the highest confidence level. CONCLUSION: Senior Jordanian medical students showed good knowledge with high confidence levels in diagnosing life-threatening conditions on chest x-rays, supporting their incorporation in the emergency department during pandemics and confirming the reliability of information they can extract.