Science in surgical publishing – insights from a decade of Scientific Surgery
Background
Scientific Surgery Established 1998 Only online archive of surgical trials Updated to include BJS 2007 to 2009
Aim To determine whether randomised clinical trials have increased as a proportion of original articles in the surgical literature
Methods Scientific Surgery Journal contents cross-referenced Citation count determined from Google Scholar Five major general surgical journals
Scientific Surgery Contents
RCTs in leading surgical journals
P = 0.002
RCTs: proportion of original articles
RCTs as proportion of original articles P<0.001
Median citations per RCT
P=0.023 P=0.007
Comparison with medical journals
Comment Surgical publication pattern has changed Now comparable with specialist medical journals BJS publication pattern has significantly changed