Navigating the Seas of Publications in A Medical Journal: The Role of an Editor.

The world of scientific publishing is a dynamic ecosystem where groundbreaking research and discoveries find their way into the public domain. Scientific journals play a pivotal role in disseminating new knowledge, shaping the healthcare landscape, and influencing clinical practice. Behind the scenes, editors serve as gatekeepers, meticulously reviewing and selecting articles to ensure the highest standards of quality and relevance. This article offers insights into the role of editors regarding publications in medical journals, shedding light on the challenges, responsibilities, and evolving trends in this crucial process.

Análisis bibliométrico de las revistas oficiales de sociedades de medicina interna en Europa / Bibliometric analysis of the official journals of internal medicine societies in Europe

Introducción La bibliometría evalúa la calidad de las revistas biomédicas. El objetivo de este estudio ha sido comparar los principales índices bibliométricos de las revistas oficiales de sociedades científicas de medicina interna en Europa. Material y métodos Se obtuvo información bibliométrica de las bases de datos Web of Science (WoS) y Scopus. Se analizaron tanto métricas de impacto (Journal Impact Factor [JIF], CiteScore) como normalizadas (Journal Citation Indicator [JCI], Normalized Eigenfactor, Source Normalized Impact per Paper [SNIP] y SCImago Journal Rank [SJR]) de las revistas para el año 2022, y se observó su evolución en la última década. Resultados Se evaluaron 23 revistas oficiales de 33 sociedades científicas. Ocho revistas estaban incluidas en WoS y 11 en Scopus. Las revistas mejor posicionadas en 2022 fueron: 1) European Journal of Internal Medicine, que ocupó el primer cuartil (Q1) de las métricas JIF, CiteScore y JCI, superando valores de uno en las métricas Normalized Eigenfactor y SNIP; 2) Internal and Emergency Medicine, en Q1 para las métricas CiteScore y JCI, y con valores >1 en las métricas Normalized Eigenfactor y SNIP; 3) Polish Archives of Internal Medicine, con Q1 en la métrica JCI; 4) Revista Clínica Española, con Q2 para las métricas JIF, CiteScore y JCI; y 5) Acta Medica Belgica, con Q2 en las métricas CiteScore y JCI. Estas revistas incrementaron sus métricas de impacto en los últimos 3 años, coincidiendo con la pandemia COVID. Conclusiones Cinco revistas oficiales de sociedades europeas de medicina interna, entre ellas Revista Clínica Española, cumplen altos estándares de calidad. (AU)

Introduction Bibliometrics evaluates the quality of biomedical journals. The aim of this study has been to compare the main bibliometric indexes of the official journals of scientific societies of internal medicine in Europe. Material and methods Bibliometric information was obtained from the Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus databases. Both impact metrics (Journal Impact Factor [JIF], CiteScore) and normalized metrics (Journal Citation Indicator [JCI], Normalized Eigenfactor, Source Normalized Impact per Paper [SNIP] and SCImago Journal Rank [SJR]) of the journals for the year 2022 were analyzed, and their evolution over the last decade was described. Results Twenty-three official journals from 33 scientific societies were evaluated. Eight journals were included in WoS and 11 in Scopus. The best positioned journals in 2022 were: 1) European Journal of Internal Medicine, which ranked in the first quartile (Q1) for JIF, CiteScore and JCI metrics, exceeding values of 1 in Normalized Eigenfactor and SNIP metrics; 2) Internal and Emergency Medicine, with Q1 for CiteScore and JCI metrics, and with values >1 in Normalized Eigenfactor and SNIP metrics; 3) Polish Archives of Internal Medicine, with Q1 for JCI metrics; 4) Revista Clínica Española, with Q2 for JIF, CiteScore and JCI metrics; and 5) Acta Medica Belgica, Q2 for CiteScore and JCI metrics. These journals increased their impact metrics in the last 3 years, in parallel with the COVID pandemic. Conclusions Five official journals of European Internal Medicine societies, including Revista Clínica Española, meet high quality standards. (AU)

Bibliometric analysis of the official journals of internal medicine societies in Europe.

INTRODUCTION: Bibliometrics evaluates the quality of biomedical journals. The aim of this study has been to compare the main bibliometric indexes of the official journals of scientific societies of Internal Medicine in Europe. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Bibliometric information was obtained from the Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus databases. Both impact metrics (Journal Impact Factor [JIF], CiteScore) and normalized metrics (Journal Citation Indicator [JCI], Normalized Eigenfactor, Source Normalized Impact per Paper [SNIP] and SCImago Journal Rank [SJR]) of the journals for the year 2022 were analyzed, and their evolution over the last decade was described. RESULTS: Twenty-three official journals from 33 scientific societies were evaluated. Eight journals were included in WoS and 11 in Scopus. The best positioned journals in 2022 were: 1) European Journal of Internal Medicine, which ranked in the first quartile (Q1) for JIF, CiteScore and JCI metrics, exceeding values of 1 in Normalized Eigenfactor and SNIP metrics; 2) Internal and Emergency Medicine, with Q1 for CiteScore and JCI metrics, and with values >1 in Normalized EigenFactor and SNIP metrics; 3) Polish Archives of Internal Medicine, with Q1 for JCI metrics; 4) Revista Clínica Española, with Q2 for JIF, CiteScore and JCI metrics; and 5) Acta Medica Belgica, with Q2 for CiteScore and JCI metrics. These journals increased their impact metrics in the last 3 years, in parallel with the COVID pandemic. CONCLUSIONS: Five official journals of European Internal Medicine societies, including Revista Clínica Española, meet high quality standards.

Analysis of gender representation on transfusion medicine journal editorial boards: Comparison between 2019 and 2022.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: A 2019 study highlighted significant gender inequities among blood banking and transfusion medicine (BBTM) journal editorial boards. We sought to assess if the representation of women has improved in the intervening 3 years. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We analysed the gender composition of nine BBTM journal editorial boards as of 13 September 2022, including the seven journals studied in 2019. We compared this to the proportion of females (term used by authors) on seven BBTM journal editorial boards in 2019 to assess change in the editorial board composition. We also assessed gender composition by editorial position (editor-in-chief [EIC], associate/assistant/titled editors and editorial board members). RESULTS: Nine BBTM journals have a total of 398 editorial positions and comprise significantly more men than women (68.8%, 274/398 vs. 31.2%, 124/398; p < 0.001). Among the seven journals analysed in 2019, the proportion of women on these seven editorial boards has remained unchanged (2019: 30.1%, 81/269 vs. 2022: 31.9%, 103/323; p = 0.66) despite the addition of 54 editorial positions. CONCLUSION: Women remain inequitably represented on journal editorial boards among all journal editorial positions. Although advocacy efforts are increasing, there has been limited improvement in gender equity in 3 years, despite a 20% increase in editorial positions.

Law Journals, Biomedical Journals, and Restraint of Trade.

Law journals permit submission of scholarly manuscripts to multiple journals concurrently, but biomedical journals strictly forbid submission of manuscripts to more than one journal at a time. Law journals may then compete for the publication of manuscripts. This article examines whether the single-submission requirement of biomedical journals may constitute restraint of trade in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

European Heart Journal quality standards.

The aim of the European Heart Journal (EHJ) is to attract innovative, methodologically sound, and clinically relevant research manuscripts able to change clinical practice and/or substantially advance knowledge on cardiovascular diseases. As the reference journal in cardiovascular medicine, the EHJ is committed to publishing only the best cardiovascular science adhering to the highest ethical principles. EHJ uses highly rigorous peer-review, critical statistical review and the highest quality editorial process, to ensure the novelty, accuracy, quality, and relevance of all accepted manuscripts with the aim of inspiring the clinical practice of EHJ readers and reducing the global burden of cardiovascular diseases. This review article summarizes the quality standards pursued by the EHJ to fulfill its mission.

Compliance with ethical rules for scientific publishing in biomedical Open Access journals indexed in Journal Citation Reports.

This study examined compliance with the criteria of transparency and best practice in scholarly publishing defined by COPE, DOAJ, OASPA and WAME in Biomedical Open Access journals indexed in Journal Citation Reports (JCR). 259 Open Access journals were drawn from the JCR database and on the basis of their websites their compliance with 14 criteria for transparency and best practice in scholarly publishing was verified. Journals received penalty points for each unfulfilled criterion when they failed to comply with the criteria defined by COPE, DOAJ, OASPA and WAME. The average number of obtained penalty points was 6, where 149 (57.5%) journals received 6 points and 110 (42.5%) journals 7 points. Only 4 journals met all criteria and did not receive any penalty points. Most of the journals did not comply with the criteria declaration of Creative Commons license (164 journals), affiliation of editorial board members (116), unambiguity of article processing charges (115), anti-plagiarism policy (113) and the number of editorial board members from developing countries (99). The research shows that JCR cannot be used as a whitelist of journals that comply with the criteria of transparency and best practice in scholarly publishing.

Percepciones de expertos sobre características y habilidades que deben considerarse en la revisión de manuscritos / Experts perceptions on characteristics and skills that must be taken into account in the review of manuscripts

Introducción: El experto es figura clave en la evaluación de manuscritos científicos. Objetivo: Valorar las percepciones de expertos de revistas biomédicas cubanas en relación con características y habilidades que deben considerarse en la revisión de manuscritos. Métodos: Investigación descriptiva (septiembre 2013-diciembre 2014) realizada como parte del proyecto de culminación del curso para editores impartido por la Editorial Ciencias Médicas. El grupo analizado estuvo constituido por 57 árbitros. Para su selección se tuvo en cuenta el criterio del director de la revista. La recogida de información se realizó a través de un cuestionario que exploró variables sociodemográficas y relacionadas con el proceso de evaluación. Los datos se ingresaron en una base de datos creada al efecto con el programa SPSS versión 15.0 en español. Resultados: Las características identificadas con mayor porcentaje de respuestas e importancia indispensable fueron: actitud ética y responsable: 45 árbitros (82 por ciento) y actualizado en el tema a evaluar 42 expertos (76 por ciento). Las habilidades, con iguales condiciones fueron, detectar errores graves de forma y contenido: 42 expertos (76 por ciento) y ser éticos en sus críticas 38 expertos (69 por ciento). Otras particularidades profesionales, como ser objetivos en el dictamen y detectar errores metodológicos que afectan la calidad del texto, respectivamente, alcanzaron porcentajes menores. Conclusiones: Los expertos reconocen aspectos fundamentales para la evaluación de los manuscritos, lo que podría influir en el resultado positivo de su labor siempre que lo asuman y apliquen en su práctica, con énfasis en aquellas características profesionales que tuvieron menores porcentajes de reconocimiento(AU)

Introduction: Experts are a key factor in the assessment of scientific manuscripts. Objective: To assess the perception of Cuban biomedical journal's experts in relation with the characteristics and skills that must be taken into account in the review of manuscripts. Methods: Descriptive research (September 2013-December 2014) carried out as part of the final project in the Course for Editors given by the Medical Sciences Publishing House (Editorial de Ciencias Médicas). The assessed group was formed by 57 referees. It was taken into account the opinion of the journal´s directors for their selection. Data collection was carried out by a questionnaire that explored socio-demographic variables related with the assessment process. Data were submitted in a database created with SPSS program, version 15.0 in Spanish. Results: The characteristics identified with a higher percentage of answers and essential importance were: ethical and responsible attitude: 45 referees (82 percent); and there were updated in the assessed topic 42 experts (76 percent). The skills with the same conditions were: to detect serious mistakes of form and content: 42 experts (76 percent) and to be ethical in their critics: 38 experts (69 percent). Other professional particularities as being objective in the report and to detect methodological mistakes that affect the quality of the text had lower percentages. Conclusions: Experts can recognize essential aspects for the assessment of manuscripts, which can influence in the positive result of their work as far as they assume it and use it practically emphasizing in those professional characteristics that had lower percentages of acknowledgement(AU)

The Principles of Biomedical Scientific Writing: Title.

The title of a paper is "like a hat on a head or the front door to a house" and its initial impression. Writing a good and effective title makes the paper more retrievable by search engines and maximizes its impact in the scientific community. The paper's title presents what has been studied, how it has been done, and what are the major results. A well-written title is balanced for being informative and concise, as well as attractively conveying the main topic, highlighting the importance of the study. For writing a good title, it should be drafted correctly, accurately, carefully, and meticulously by the main study keywords. By removing extra and unspecific words, the final title should be unambiguous, memorable, captivating, and informative. Here, we provided an overview of the importance and function of the title as well as different types of titles in scientific medical writing. We also focused on the content and organization of the title of a hypothesis-testing paper. In addition, the features of a good title were discussed.

Las revistas científicas biomédicas en Ecuador: datos y reflexiones sobre el pasado, presente y futuro de las publicaciones periódicas / Biomedical scientific journals in Ecuador: data and reflections on the past, present and future of newspaper publication

Contexto: la investigación biomédica o médica termina también en una publicación escrita, que representa la base de futuras investigaciones o el eslabón de una cadena de producción de conocimientos. Objetivo: realizar un análisis histórico, cronológico de las revistas biomédicas en el Ecuador y su evolución hasta nuestros días, así como identificar las fortalezas y debilidades de las revistas actuales que se encuentran activas. Discusión y resultados: se analiza el tipo de revistas publicadas en el Ecuador a lo largo de 134 años, y se divide el análisis en tres etapas: pasada o era del papel, presente o digital y futura o era electrónica. Conclusión: entre el año 1.883 al 2.017 se han publicado 118 revistas biomédicas. De ellas, a febrero del 2018, tan sólo 23 revistas se encuentran vigentes y activas, considerando que tienen publicado al menos un número de la revista en formato digital en el año 2016 y/o 2017 y cuyo website está disponible al momento. En formato OJS existen apenas 10 revistas y apenas 29 revistas se encuentran indexadas en al menos una base de datos regional (LILACS, Latindex o IMBIOMED). Ninguna revista biomédica está en la base de datos Scielo Ecuador y tan sólo una revista consta en la base de datos Scopus. (AU)

Context: biomedical or medical research ends in a written publication, which represents the basis for future research, or the link in a chain of knowledge production. Objective: to carry out a historical, chronological analysis of the biomedical journals in Ecuador, and their evolution to the present day, as well as to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the current journals that are active. Discussion and results: the type of journals published in Ecuador is analyzed over 134 years, and the analysis is divided into three stages: past or era of paper, present or digital, and future or electronic era. Conclusion: between the year 1883 and 2016, 118 biomedical journals have been published. Of these, as of February 2018, only 23 journals are current and active, considering that they have published at least one issue of the journal in digital format in 2016 and / or 2017, and whose website is available at the moment. In OJS format there are only 10 journals, and only 29 journals are indexed in at least one regional database, LILACS, Latindex or IMBIOMED. No biomedical journal is in the Scielo Ecuador database, and only one journal is included in the Scopus database. (AU)

Where are Romanian biomedical journals now and what does the future hold for them? A scientometric analysis.

BACKGROUND AND AIM: There is a competition between scientific journals in order to achieve leadership in their scientific field. There are several Romanian biomedical journals which are published in English and a smaller number in Romanian. We need a periodical analysis of their visibility and ranking according to scientometric measures. METHODS: We searched all biomedical journals indexed on international data bases: Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, Embase, Google Scholar. We analyzed their evaluation factors. RESULTS: Several journals from Romania in the biomedical field are indexed in international databases. Their scientometric indexes are not high. The best journal was acquired by an international publisher and is no longer listed for Romania. CONCLUSIONS: There are several Romanian biomedical journals indexed in international databases that deserve periodical analysis. There is a need to improve their ranking.

Declaraciones de conflictos de interés en las publicaciones biomédicas: estudio de cuatro revistas clínicas españolas / Conflicts of interest disclosure in biomedical publications: study of four Spanish clinical journals / Declarações de conflitos de interesse em publicações biomédicas: estudo de quatro revistas clínicas espanholas

La declaración de las relaciones financieras y personales de los investigadores con las compañías farmacéuticas es percibida como un paso esencial en la gestión de los potenciales conflictos de interés. El objetivo del estudio fue evaluar las declaraciones de conflictos de interés en cuatro revistas biomédicas españolas publicadas en castellano: Atención Primaria, Medicina Clínica, Revista Clínica Española y Revista Española de Cardiología. Se analizaron las publicaciones de 2012 calificadas por las revistas como "Editorial", "Artículo original", "Documento de consenso", "Revisión" y "Artículo especial". De 412 artículos, 315 (76%) presentaron declaración de conflictos de interés. Por revista, el 73% de los artículos de Atención Primaria, el 68% de Medicina Clínica, el 60% de Revista Clínica Española y el 100% de Revista Española de Cardiología tenía declaración de conflictos de interés. Solo el 12% de las declaraciones describía alguna actividad susceptible de generar conflicto de interés, mientras que el resto afirmaba no tener. Además de una variabilidad considerable en la frecuencia de declaración de conflictos de interés, la presencia de actividades declaradas es baja. Parece necesario mejorar la uniformidad y transparencia de las políticas de declaración de conflictos de interés.

Disclosure of financial relationships between researchers and pharmaceutical companies is seen as an essential step in the management of potential conflicts of interest. The objective of the study was to evaluate the frequency of conflicts of interest disclosure in four Spanish biomedical journals: Atención Primaria, Medicina Clínica, Revista Clínica Española and Revista Española de Cardiología. Publications qualified as "Editorial", "Original Article", "Consensus Document", "Review" and "Special article" in 2012 were analyzed. Of 412 articles, 315 (76%) had a conflict of interest statement. By journal, 73% of the articles in Atención Primaria, 68% in Medicina Clínica, 60% in Revista Clínica Española and 100% in Revista Española de Cardiología had disclosure of conflicts of interest. Only 12% of disclosures reported activities, while the rest maintains "No conflict of interest". In addition to a considerable variability in the frequency of conflicts of interest disclosure, the presence of activities disclosed is low. It would be necessary to improve the consistency and transparency of the policy declaration of conflicts of interest.

A declaração das relações financeiras e pessoais de pesquisadores com empresas farmacêuticas é vista como um passo essencial na gestão dos potenciais conflitos de interesse. O objetivo do estudo foi avaliar as declarações de conflitos de interesses em quatro revistas biomédicas espanholas publicadas em castelhano: Atención Primaria, Medicina Clínica, Revista Clínica Española e Revista Española de Cardiología. Foram analisadas as publicações de 2012 classidicadas pelas revistas enquanto: "Editor", "Artigo Original", "Documento de consenso", "Revisão" e "Artigo especial". De 412 artigos, 315 (76%) apresentaram declaração de conflitos de interesses. Por revista, 73% dos artigos de Atención Primaria, 68% de Medicina Clínica, 60% da Revista clínica Española e 100% da Revista Espanhola de Cardiologia tinham declaração de conflitos de interesses. Apenas 12% das declrações descrevia qualquer atividade suscetível a gerar conflito de interesses, enquanto o resto alegou não ter. Ademais de uma considerável variabilidade na frequência de declaração de conflitos de interesses, a presença de atividades declaradas é baixa. Parece necessário melhorar a uniformidade e a transparência das políticas de declaração de conflito de interesses.

III Encuentro Nacional de Publicación Científica en Ciencias de la Salud / III National Meeting on Scientific Publication in Health Sciences

El III Encuentro Nacional de Publicación Científica en Ciencias de la Salud se desarrolló del 29 al 31 de marzo del año en curso, auspiciado por el Centro Nacional de Información de Ciencias Médicas y la Universidad de Ciencias Médicas de Santiago de Cuba y tuvo como tema central la Política Editorial en revistas biomédicas. Con la participación de directores y editores de una amplia representación de las revistas biomédicas nacionales, y dos invitados internacionales cuyas conferencias resultaron enriquecedoras, el taller marcó las pautas del trabajo editorial en lo adelante, en cuanto a los objetivos comunes a alcanzar para garantizar la calidad y visibilidad de las mismas en nuevas bases de dato.

The 3rd National Meeting for Scientific Publication in the Health Sciences was held from 29th to 31st of March this year, sponsored by the National Information Center of Medical Sciences and the Medical University in Santiago de Cuba had as main topic the editing policy in biomedical journals. With the participation of directors and editors of a wide representation of the biomedical journals, and two international invited personalities, who presented enriching lectures, the workshop set the standards of the future editorial work, regarding the common objectives to be reached to guarantee their quality and visibility in new data base.

Alternative Metrics ("Altmetrics") for Assessing Article Impact in Popular General Radiology Journals.

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES: Emerging alternative metrics leverage social media and other online platforms to provide immediate measures of biomedical articles' reach among diverse public audiences. We aimed to compare traditional citation and alternative impact metrics for articles in popular general radiology journals. MATERIALS AND METHODS: All 892 original investigations published in 2013 issues of Academic Radiology, American Journal of Roentgenology, Journal of the American College of Radiology, and Radiology were included. Each article's content was classified as imaging vs nonimaging. Traditional journal citations to articles were obtained from Web of Science. Each article's Altmetric Attention Score (Altmetric), representing weighted mentions across a variety of online platforms, was obtained from Altmetric.com. Statistical assessment included the McNemar test, the Mann-Whitney test, and the Pearson correlation. RESULTS: Mean and median traditional citation counts were 10.7 ± 15.4 and 5 vs 3.3 ± 13.3 and 0 for Altmetric. Among all articles, 96.4% had ≥1 traditional citation vs 41.8% for Altmetric (P < 0.001). Online platforms for which at least 5% of the articles were represented included Mendeley (42.8%), Twitter (34.2%), Facebook (10.7%), and news outlets (8.4%). Citations and Altmetric were weakly correlated (r = 0.20), with only a 25.0% overlap in terms of articles within their top 10th percentiles. Traditional citations were higher for articles with imaging vs nonimaging content (11.5 ± 16.2 vs 6.9 ± 9.8, P < 0.001), but Altmetric scores were higher in articles with nonimaging content (5.1 ± 11.1 vs 2.8 ± 13.7, P = 0.006). CONCLUSIONS: Although overall online attention to radiology journal content was low, alternative metrics exhibited unique trends, particularly for nonclinical articles, and may provide a complementary measure of radiology research impact compared to traditional citation counts.

How to run a successful Journal.

Publishing and successfully running a good quality peer reviewed biomedical scientific journal is not an easy task. Some of the pre-requisites include a competent experienced editor supported by a team. Long term sustainability of a journal will depend on good quality manuscripts, active editorial board, good quality of reviewers, workable business model to ensure financial support, increased visibility which will ensure increased submissions, indexation in various important databases, online availability and easy to use website. This manuscript outlines the logistics and technical issues which need to be resolved before starting a new journal and ensuring sustainability of a good quality peer reviewed journal.

Use of a Machine-learning Method for Predicting Highly Cited Articles Within General Radiology Journals.

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to assess the performance of a text classification machine-learning model in predicting highly cited articles within the recent radiological literature and to identify the model's most influential article features. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We downloaded from PubMed the title, abstract, and medical subject heading terms for 10,065 articles published in 25 general radiology journals in 2012 and 2013. Three machine-learning models were applied to predict the top 10% of included articles in terms of the number of citations to the article in 2014 (reflecting the 2-year time window in conventional impact factor calculations). The model having the highest area under the curve was selected to derive a list of article features (words) predicting high citation volume, which was iteratively reduced to identify the smallest possible core feature list maintaining predictive power. Overall themes were qualitatively assigned to the core features. RESULTS: The regularized logistic regression (Bayesian binary regression) model had highest performance, achieving an area under the curve of 0.814 in predicting articles in the top 10% of citation volume. We reduced the initial 14,083 features to 210 features that maintain predictivity. These features corresponded with topics relating to various imaging techniques (eg, diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging, hyperpolarized magnetic resonance imaging, dual-energy computed tomography, computed tomography reconstruction algorithms, tomosynthesis, elastography, and computer-aided diagnosis), particular pathologies (prostate cancer; thyroid nodules; hepatic adenoma, hepatocellular carcinoma, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease), and other topics (radiation dose, electroporation, education, general oncology, gadolinium, statistics). CONCLUSIONS: Machine learning can be successfully applied to create specific feature-based models for predicting articles likely to achieve high influence within the radiological literature.

The Impact Factor of Radiological Journals: Associations with Journal Content and Other Characteristics Over a Recent 12-Year Period.

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to evaluate the trends in the impact factor (IF) of radiological journals over a recent 12-year period, including associations between IF and journal topic. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Journal Citation Reports (JCR) was used to identify all biomedical journals and all radiological journals (assigned a JCR category of "Radiology, Nuclear Medicine, & Medical Imaging"), along with journal IF, in 2003 and 2014. Radiological journals were manually classified by topic. Trends in median IF (mIF) were assessed. RESULTS: The number of radiological journals increased from 83 (2003) to 125 (2014) (all biomedical journals: 5907 to 8718, respectively). mIF of radiological journals increased from 1.42 (2003) to 1.75 (2014) (all biomedical journals: 0.93 to 1.46, respectively). The most common topic among new radiological journals was general (nonspecialized) radiology (8). Five new radiological journals in 2014 were in topics (cancer imaging and molecular imaging) having no journals in 2003. mIF of general radiological journals was 1.49. Topics having highest mIF were cardiac imaging (2.94), optics (2.86), molecular imaging (2.77), radiation oncology (2.60), and neuroradiology (2.25). Topics with lowest mIF were ultrasound (1.19) and interventional radiology (1.44). Topics with the largest increase in mIF were cardiac imaging (from 1.17 to 2.94) and neuroradiology (from 1.07 to 2.25). CONCLUSIONS: Radiological journals exhibited higher mIF than biomedical journals overall. Among radiological journals, subspecialty journals had highest mIF. While a considerable number of new radiological journals since 2003 were general radiology journals having relatively low IF, there were also new journal topics representing emerging areas of subspecialized radiological research.

Retracted Publications Within Radiology Journals.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to characterize trends related to retracted publications within radiology journals. MATERIALS AND METHODS: PubMed was queried to identify all articles with the publication type "retracted publication" or "notification of retraction." Articles published within radiology journals were identified using Journal Citation Reports' journal categories. Available versions of original articles and publication notices were accessed from journal websites. Citations to retracted publications were identified using Web of Science. Overall trends were assessed. RESULTS: Forty-eight retracted original research articles were identified within radiology journals since 1983, which included 1.1% of all PubMed "retracted publication" entries. Distinct PubMed entries were available for the retracted publication and retraction notification in 39 of 48 articles. The original PDF was available for 37 articles, although the articles were not watermarked as retracted in 23 cases. In six cases with a watermarked PDF, further searches identified nonwatermarked versions. Original HTML versions were available for 13 articles but 11 were not watermarked. The mean (± SD) delay between publication and retraction was 2.7 ± 2.8 years (range, 0-16 years). The mean number of citations to retracted articles was 10.9 ± 17.1 (range, 0-94 citations). Reasons for retraction included problematic or incorrect methods or results (although it typically was unclear whether these represented honest errors or misconduct) in 33.3% of cases, complete or partial duplicate publication in 33.3% of cases, plagiarism in 14.6% of cases, a permission issue in 8.3% of cases, the publisher's error in 6.3% of cases, and no identified reason in 6.3% of cases. One or no retractions occurred annually from 1986 to 2001, although two or more retractions occurred annually in nine of the 12 years from 2002 through 2013. CONCLUSION: Retraction represents an uncommon, yet potentially increasing, issue within radiology journals that publishers have inconsistently and insufficiently addressed. Greater awareness and training in proper biomedical research conduct, as well as establishment and enforcement of standardized publishers' policies, are warranted.