The evaluation of the international publications of the radiation oncology departments and clinics in turkey: opportunities and comments

THE EVALUATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL PUBLICATIONS OF THERADIATION ONCOLOGY DEPARTMENTS AND CLINICS IN TURKEY:OPPORTUNITIES AND COMMENTSFerhat Eyiler, MDDokuz Eylül University, Faculty of Medicine, Radiation Oncology DepartmentI. AbstractAim: This study aims to evaluate the international scientific articles publishedby the Radiation Oncology clinics in Turkey for the last 16 years in terms ofquality and quantity, and to investigate the factors that have an effect on thesepublications.Method and instrument: For this ?definition oriented? study, ?Institute forScientific Information? (ISI) web site?s scientific publication search page hasbeen used with the aim of searching the international articles published by theRadiation Oncology clinics in Turkey between the years 1990-2005. Fivehundred thirty six studies of Turkish origin have been determined, anyresearcher of which was from a radiation oncology clinic. Out of these, 161studies in which at least one of the first three authors was not a radiationoncologist, 54 studies which were meeting summaries, and 25 studies whichwere letters to the publisher, were excluded from our investigation. Theremaining 295 scientific studies were assessed in detail according to theinstitution, year, study type, study content, total number of references, and citywise distribution.Findings: When assessed in terms of the institution, 287 (97%) out of 295studies have originated from university hospitals and 8 (3%) were fromcommunity hospitals. When publications were evaluated in terms of year, it wasobserved that 78% (230) of the studies were carried out between the years2000-2005. When 295 studies were evaluated in terms of research type, 131(44%) of them were retrospective, 71 (24%) were case presentations, 44 (15%)were experimental studies, 20 (7%) were prospective, 20 (7%) wererandomized and controlled, 5 (2%) were reviews and 4 (1%) were surveys. Twohundred and forty seven clinical (84%), 32 (11%) radiobiological and 16 (5%)radiophysical studies were identified when study contents were investigated.When the clinical studies were assessed in terms of subject, head and necktumors were leading with 49 (20%) studies. Total number of referred articleswas 169 (57%), and median received references per study was 3 (1-71). Withregard to the number of publications, it was observed that Hacettepe University,Istanbul University Faculty of Medicine and Ankara University ranked first,second and third with respectively, 56 (19%), 26 (9%) and 24 (8%) publications.In terms of number of studies that have received reference, HacettepeUniversity and Istanbul University Faculty of Medicine ranked first and secondwith respectively, 37 and 21 publications. With regard to city wise distribution, itwas observed that the studies have accumulated in 3 big towns with 218publications (74%). It was observed that out of 128 journals in which the studieswere published, 55 (42%) journals had an ?Impact Factor? (IF) value which islower than 1.Discussion and Result: The number of scientific studies published ininternational journals carried out by the Radiation Oncology clinics in ourcountry, is way behind from a lot of countries; it was observed that the quality ofthe journals and the number of received references were low as well. Someinstitutions and towns seem to be prominent in terms of number of publishedarticles and received references. Although there are many factors that affectscientific productivity, it has been observed that the institutions, in which anethical publication policy has established, were prominent.