Understanding disparities in research publications in high-impact factor journals by cancer site.

Abstract

e13626 Background: Prior studies have shown disparities in funding allocation for gynecologic cancers after accounting for their mortality, incidence, and person-years of life lost. Whether disparities exist in high impact factor journals is unknown. The purpose of this study is to analyze research publication trends in high impact factor journals comparing gynecologic cancers to other cancers from 2000 to 2018. Methods: Abstracts from the top 55 impact factor journals, as measured by Clarivate, from 2000 to 2018 were extracted from PubMed. We developed an algorithm to search the title of the abstract to determine whether the abstract was about cancer and identify the cancer type. The algorithm was validated against the gold standard of human review in 1143 abstracts and yielded a sensitivity of 97% and a specificity of 100% for identifying cancer abstracts and an accuracy of 95% for identifying cancer site. Using NCI’s SEER database, site-specific mortality to incidence ratios were calculated and multiplied by person-years of life lost to derive cancer-specific lethality for 19 cancer sites. An article proportion for each cancer site was calculated. Article proportion was divided by lethality to calculate Article to Lethality scores for gynecologic malignancies and compared to the other cancer sites. Results: We identified 128,377 articles; 31,045 (24%) were about cancer and 1,189 (3.8%) were about gynecologic cancers. Ovarian, uterine, and cervical cancers ranked 12th (score 21.9), 13th (20.9), and 18th (10.1) out of 19 cancers for median Article to Lethality scores. The highest scores were for breast cancer (score 427) and prostate cancer (234). Ovarian and uterine cancers had lower Article to Lethality scores compared to 11 other cancers, while cervical cancer was lower than 16 other cancers (p < 0.01 for all comparisons). Analyses of the trends for gynecologic cancers over the last 18 years showed no change in Article to Lethality scores. Conclusions: Article to Lethality scores for gynecologic cancers are significantly lower than other cancer sites, indicating a disparity in research publications in high impact factor journals that persists over the last 18 years. Increased funding is essential to ensure continued advancement and progress in research for women with gynecologic cancers.[Table: see text]