Large Publication Gap for Gynecologic Cancers in High-Impact Factor Journals

Abstract

Objective: To analyze research publication trends in high-impact factor journals, comparing gynecologic cancers with other cancers from 2000 to 2018.

Methods: Abstracts from the 55 journals with the highest impact factors, as measured by Clarivate, from 2000 to 2018 were extracted from PubMed. We developed an algorithm to search the title of the abstract to determine whether the abstract was about cancer and to identify the cancer type. The algorithm was validated against the gold standard of human review in 1,143 abstracts. Article proportion was compared with site-specific incidence, mortality, and lethality from the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results database using scatterplots and nonparametric Wilcoxon signed-rank test.

Results: We identified 128,377 articles; 31,045 (24.1%) were about cancer and 1,189 (3.8%) were about gynecologic cancers. Gynecologic cancers (ovarian, cervical, and uterine) were all poorly represented in high-impact factor journals compared with their incidence, mortality, and lethality. Ovarian, uterine, and cervical cancers ranked in the bottom half of Article-to-Lethality scores ( P <.01 for all comparisons). Analyses of the trends for gynecologic cancers over the past 18 years showed no change over time in Article-to-Lethality scores. Comparison of rankings by lethality with rankings by funding indicates relative underfunding of the gynecologic cancers.

Conclusion: Research publications in high-impact factor journals by cancer site are not proportionate with individual cancer burden on society. Gynecologic cancers are significantly underrepresented in research publications relative to their disease burden, indicating a disparity that persists over the past 18 years. Relative underfunding of gynecologic cancers likely contributes to this publication gap.