Objective: Determine whether social media platforms can influence article impact as measured by citations. Methods: Cross-sectional study that analyzed articles published in the top 10 otolaryngology journals by Eigenfactor score in January 2015. Total accumulated Twitter mentions and citations were recorded in 2021. The main outcomes examined the difference in citations, tweets, article types, and author counts accumulated over a 5-year period for all articles that were either tweeted or nontweeted. Results: A total of 3094 articles were included for analysis. The average article was cited 11.2 ± 13.2 times and tweeted 2.10 ± 4.0 times. Sixty-four percent of the articles had at least one tweet. Over the study period, there was a statistically significant difference in mean number of citations between tweeted articles (12.1 ± 15.0) versus nontweeted articles (9.6 ± 10.5) citations, representing a 26% difference ( P < .001). Review articles had the highest mean citations (19.4 ± 23.4) while editorials had the lowest mean citations (2.8 ± 6.9). Tweets peaked in the year of publication, but citations continued to rise in the subsequent years. Tweeted articles’ peak citation rate change was +1.27 mean citations per year, compared to +0.99 mean citations per year in nontweeted articles. The mean author count in tweeted articles (5.40 ± 3.1) was not significantly different than the mean author count in nontweeted articles (5.19 ± 2.65, P = .0794). Conclusion: These data suggest a moderate correlation between tweets and article citations, but a clear difference in the number of citations in articles tweeted versus those with no tweets. Thus, dissemination of knowledge may be impacted by social medial platforms such as Twitter.
PURPOSE
Radiation-induced meningiomas (RIMs) are associated with previous exposure to therapeutic irradiation. RIMs are rare and have not been well characterized relative to spontaneous meningiomas (SMs).
METHODS
1003 patients with proven or presumed meningiomas were identified from the VCU brain tumor database. Chart review classified RIM patients and their characteristics.
RESULTS
Of the 1003 total patients, 76.47% were female with a mean ± SD age of 67.55 ± 15.50 years. 15 RIM patients were identified (66.67% female), with a mean ± SD age of 52.67 ± 15.46 years, 5 were African American and 10 were Caucasian. The incidence of RIMs was 1.49% in our data set. The mean age at diagnosis was 43.27 ± 15.06 years. The mean latency was 356.27 ± 116.96 months. The mean initiating dose was 44.28 ± 14.68 Gy. There was a significant difference between mean latency period and ethnicity, 258.3 months for African American population, and 405.2 months for Caucasian population (p = 0.003). There was a significant difference between the mean number of lesions in females (2.8) versus males (1.2; p = 0.046). Of the RIMs with characterized histology, 6 (55%) were WHO grade II and 5 (45%) were WHO grade I, demonstrating a prevalence of grade II tumors approximately double that found with SMs. RIMs were treated with combinations of observation, surgery, radiation, and medical therapy. Of the 8 patients treated with radiation, 4 demonstrated response. 8 of the 15 patients (53%) demonstrated recurrence/progression despite treatment.
CONCLUSION
RIMs are important because of the associated higher grade histology, gender, and ethnic incidences, and increased recurrence/progression compared to SMs. Despite the presumed contributory role of prior radiation, RIMs demonstrate a significant rate of responsiveness to radiation treatment.
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