I n many countries today, women make up half of medical students, and the number of female students choosing to pursue a career in medical imaging (radiology and nuclear medicine) is rising (1,2). However, the higher up the career ladder, the lower the proportion of women, a phenomenon known as the leaky pipeline (3). Compared with their male colleagues, women are underrepresented as authors, and leadership positions in medical imaging-either within institutions or within scientific organizations, committees, boards, or journals-are still dominated by men (4-6). Examples of challenges women face in general are maledominated cultures and networks, lack of female mentors, and explicit and implicit gender biases in recruitment, research allocation, outcomes of peer reviews, and citations (7-10). Working mothers face the well-described maternal wall bias, where maternal stereotyping and discrimination undermine their professional performance (11).Early reports on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on scientific research, all fields concerned, mention the deleterious effect the pandemic might have on the careers of parents working in science, and in particular on the scientific output of female researchers (12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17). This is due to an unbalanced division of work, as women still perform the majority of household chores and care work, even in developed countries perceived as gender-egalitarian (18,19). Because schools and daycare facilities closed in many countries during the first COVID-19-related lockdown, the pandemic might thus eventually affect female career advancement, as the number and quality of publications in peer-reviewed journals one has authored are essential.The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the COVID-19 pandemic might have an impact on scientific publishing by female physicians in medical imaging. We performed a descriptive bibliometric analysis of female first and last authorship over the 3-month period corresponding to the first lockdown period in most countries due to the COVID-19 pandemic.Background: Early reports show the unequal effect the COVID-19 pandemic might have on men versus women engaged in medical research.Purpose: To investigate whether the COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on scientific publishing by female physicians in medical imaging. Materials and Methods:The authors conducted a descriptive bibliometric analysis of the gender of the first and last authors of manuscripts submitted to the top 50 medical imaging journals from March to May 2020 (n = 2480) compared with the same period of the year in 2018 (n = 2238) and 2019 (n = 2355). Manuscript title, date of submission, first and last names of the first and last authors, journal impact factor, and author country of provenance were recorded. The Gender-API software was used to determine author gender. Statistical analysis comprised x 2 tests and multivariable logistic regression.

Objective: To evaluate the incidence of the abscopal response (AR) in patients with metastatic melanoma requiring palliative radiotherapy (RT). Patients and methods: Patients treated for metastatic melanoma between January 1998 and February 2020 in four oncology departments were screened. Patients with progression under immune checkpoint inhibitors or without ongoing systemic treatment, and requiring palliative RT were considered. The AR was defined as an objective response according to RECIST and/or iRECIST for at least one non-irradiated metastasis at distance (≥10 cm) from the irradiated lesion. Primary endpoint was the rate of AR. Secondary endpoints were overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS), local control (LC) of the irradiated lesion, and toxicity as assessed by CTCAE v5. Results: Over the period considered, 118 patients were included and analyzed. Fifteen patients (12.7%) had an AR. With a median follow-up of 7.7 months (range, 0.2–242.2), median OS and PFS after RT were significantly longer in patients with an AR compared to those without: 28 vs. 6.6 months (p < 0.01) and not reached vs. 3.2 months, respectively. No grade ≥2 toxicity was reported. Patients who developed an AR were more likely to be treated with immunotherapy (93.3% vs. 55.9%, p = 0.02). In multivariate analysis, they had a higher number of irradiated metastases treated concomitantly (HR = 16.9, p < 0.01) and a higher rate of mild infections during RT (HR = 403.5, p < 0.01). Conclusions: AR in metastatic melanoma seems to be highly prognostic of overall survival, although it is a rare phenomenon. It may be promoted by multiple concomitant treatments with RT and immunotherapy and by acute inflammatory events such as infection.

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