Increasing Output and Low Publication Rate of Brazilian Studies Presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meetings

Abstract

Cancer is the second most frequent cause of death, 1 with nearly half a million individuals in Brazil diagnosed with it every year.2 It has been suggested that efforts should be directed at increasing the amount of cancer research performed in Brazil, a country where the epidemiologic burden of the disease is not matched by a proportional increase in related research investments.3 Although the amount of cancer research is increasing in Brazil,4 there is a general impression that clinical research in particular is gaining substantial momentum. This is largely because pharmaceutical companies and contract research organizations have identified Brazil as an attractive site with rapid patient accrual and high quality data collection. Indeed, several recently published major oncology studies have included a substantial number of patients from Brazil, thus ensuring co-authorship of these articles to Brazilian investigators. [5][6][7][8][9] It would be interesting to investigate the extent to which the increase in research is related to projects that originate in Brazil, as opposed to instances in which a trial is conceived by international researchers with Brazilian investigators contributing to patient accrual. To that end, we analyzed Brazilian studies presented at American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meetings. This venue is considered the largest forum for oncology professionals from all over the world to report the latest advances in cancer research.10 Although the main focus of the meeting is on medical oncology, the ASCO Annual Meeting is a venue for research presentations in all areas of clinical oncology. On the other hand, studies on radiation oncology, surgical oncology, pediatric oncology, and hematologic malignancy, although frequently presented at ASCO Annual Meetings, have other important venues for presentation.We Additionally, approximately 40% of the studies (termed "publication only") only appear in the Program Proceedings. We defined Brazilian studies as those in which at least twothirds of the involved institutions were from Brazil. For cases in which there were two institutions and one of them was Brazilian, we decided by consensus whether the study also qualified as Brazilian.We identified 154 Brazilian studies (0.90%); the main characteristics of these studies are shown in Table 1 (Table 2) showed a statistically significant increase over the 5 year period (P=0.011). Support from the pharmaceutical industry was declared in seven abstracts, always in association with clinical studies. Two Brazilian studies were selected for oral presentation, 6 were selected for oral discussion by invited speakers (in "poster discussion" sessions), 41 were presented as posters, and 105 (68.2%) appeared as "publication only". There was no statistically significant trend regarding the proportion of studies in the "publication only" category (P=0.407).Only 26 of the 154 studies (16.9%) were published in

Brazilian Abstracts Presented at the American Urological Association Annual Meetings: Contribution, Publication Rates, and Comparison with Oncology Abstracts

“…To our knowledge, however, there have been no previous studies on Brazilian abstracts presented at AUA Annual Meetings. We and others have shown an increasing Brazilian contribution in the areas of cardiology, neurology, oncology, and psychiatry, among others (10)(11)(12)(13). In the current study, we attempted to quantify the scientific output from Brazil in recent editions of the AUA Meetings.…”

“…In the current study, we attempted to quantify the scientific output from Brazil in recent editions of the AUA Meetings. As a secondary goal, we aimed to compare the urological scientific output with the experience described previously in oncology, which has shown that the Brazilian contribution in this field is quantitatively increasing in a statistically significant fashion, albeit with low publication rates (13).…”

Producción científica y redes de colaboración en cáncer en el Perú 2000-2011: un estudio bibliométrico en Scopus y Science Citation Index

“…El comportamiento de la investigación en cáncer en Perú es similar a lo que sucede a nivel mundial, con una mayor producción en cáncer de mama (13) , pero muy pobre en otros tipos de cáncer que generan alta mortalidad, como el cáncer de próstata, pulmón e hígado (Figura 2), situación parecida a Brasil, donde hay una pobre asociación entre la carga de enfermedad por cáncer y las investigaciones realizadas (14) .…”

“…La mayoría (66,2%) de artículos se publicaron en revistas en las que el cáncer no era el tema principal (Tabla 1). La revista donde se encontró más publicaciones fue la Revista de Gastroenterología del Perú (34), seguida del Journal of Clinical Oncology (14).…”

Author recognition, impact factor, relevance, and the meaning of publishing

“…Although scientific research is clearly increasing in volume in Brazil, some authors emphasize the need to enhance the conception, design, analysis, and reporting of studies that address questions relevant to our patients and our society 8,9 . Context is crucial to deciding which interventions are effective in specific populations because the effect -and therefore the impact -of some interventions could differ according to the setting 5 .…”