‘Journal Bias’ in peer-reviewed literature: an analysis of the surgical high-grade glioma literature

Abstract

The core premise of evidence-based medicine is that clinical decisions are informed by the peer-reviewed literature. To extract meaningful conclusions from this literature, one must first understand the various forms of biases inherent within the process of peer review. We performed an exhaustive search that identified articles exploring the question of whether survival benefit was associated with maximal high-grade glioma (HGG) resection and analysed this literature for patterns of publication. We found that the distribution of these 108 articles among the 26 journals to be non-random (p<0.01), with 75 of the 108 published articles (69%) appearing in 6 of the 26 journals (25%). Moreover, certain journals were likely to publish a large number of articles from the same medical academic genealogy (authors with shared training history and/or mentor). We term the tendency of certain types of articles to be published in select journals 'journal bias' and discuss the implication of this form of bias as it pertains to evidence-based medicine.

Oligodendroglioma resection: a Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) analysis

“…In neurooncology, surgical paradigms span the spectrum of only biopsy in tumors highly sensitive to chemotherapy and radiation, such as PCNSL, [10][11][12]40 to maximal safe resection in HGGs. 14,16,19,28,37,42 Our analysis of patients with oligodendroglioma in the SEER database suggests that the survival patterns of these tumors more closely resembles that of PCNSL than HGG. In our multivariate model, there was no difference in the hazard of death for patients with oligodendroglioma who underwent a biopsy only versus GTR.…”

Association between medical academic genealogy and publication outcome: impact of unconscious bias on scientific objectivity

“…Training history of the first and last authors for each article was analyzed and genealogy relation constructed using network analysis [6,35,40]. Construction of medical academic genealogy has been detailed in our previous publications [12][13][14]. Two key medical academic genealogies consisting of radiation oncologists and neurosurgeons were identified in our previous study [14].…”

“…The second genealogy (termed genealogy B) was founded by a radiation oncologist and consisted mostly of radiation oncologists. We subsequently reported that select journals are more likely to publish articles from physicians belonging to the same medical academic genealogy [13]. For instance, articles contributed by genealogy A were more likely published in a neurosurgery journal while articles contributed by genealogy B were more likely published in a radiation oncology journal.…”

“…"Medical academic genealogy" refers to the linking of physicians based on their residency or fellowship training mentors [1,[13][14][15]22,38]. We previously studied whether members of academic genealogies disproportionately contributed to the published literature.…”

Are other scientific genealogies reporting alternative facts?

“…To be connected, mentor and trainee had to be located at the same institution during the same calendar year. From this genealogic approach, the authors identified different scientific herds and previously reported that articles by genealogy members tend to share similar conclusions and that articles by members of the same genealogy tend to publish their results in certain journals [9]. Thus, we scientists seem to stick to our herds and mentors when it comes to both study conclusions and publishing channels.…”