100 most-cited articles on diabetic retinopathy

2020 ◽  
pp. bjophthalmol-2020-316609
Author(s):  
Barry Moses Quan Ren Koh ◽  
Riswana Banu ◽  
Simon Nusinovici ◽  
Charumathi Sabanayagam

Diabetic retinopathy (DR) research has had significant advancements over the past decades. We analysed the impact and characteristics of the top 100 (T100) most-cited articles in DR research. The Scopus database was searched for articles published from 1960 to June 2020 by two independent investigators. The T100 DR articles were published between 1961 and 2017 with median citations of 503 (range: 306–20 100); 84% were published after 1990. More than half (59%) were published in general medical/diabetes journals while 37% in ophthalmology journals. The top six journals contributed to 56% of the T100: Ophthalmology (n=13), Archives of Ophthalmology (n=12), Diabetes (n=9), New England Journal of Medicine (n=8), Journal of the American Medical Association (n=7) and The Lancet (n=7). Although observational studies were most popular (33%), randomised controlled trials (RCTs, 24%) published in journals with higher impact factor (IF) and citations (median IF and citations=7.113, 503 vs 21.437, 696.5, both p-value<0.05). 33 of the T100 were cited by several international DR clinical guidelines. The USA contributed to 63% of T100, but 18% of articles published after 2000 came from Asia. More than 80% of both first and last authors were men. Artificial intelligence (AI) to screen for DR ranked 14th and 99th despite recent publications in 2016 and 2017, respectively. To conclude, our T100 analysis showed that RCTs were most-cited and more articles were published in non-ophthalmology than ophthalmology journals. It highlights the impact the T100 DR has in shaping guidelines used to date in DR management, identifies AI for DR screening as an emerging area and shows a contemporary rise of Asian contribution in DR research.

2019 ◽  
Vol 78 (02) ◽  
pp. 150-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah C. Bath

It is well known that severe iodine deficiency during pregnancy may cause impaired brain development in the child, with effects on cognitive and motor function, hearing and speech. Whether mild-to-moderate deficiency also affects neurological development is less well known, but in the past decade a number of observational studies have been conducted to answer this question and these studies are reviewed in this article. The picture is now emerging that even mild-to-moderate iodine deficiency during pregnancy may be associated with subtle impairments in cognition and school performance, although the evidence from randomised controlled trials is still lacking. As global efforts to eradicate iodine deficiency in populations continue, it is more likely that mild-to-moderate, rather than severe, iodine deficiency will be the issue of concern in pregnancy, and therefore further research in regions of mild-to-moderate deficiency is required to strengthen the research base and to inform public-health policy.


Trials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alice MacLachlan ◽  
Karen Crawford ◽  
Shona Shinwell ◽  
Catherine Nixon ◽  
Marion Henderson

Abstract Background Recruiting participants to randomised controlled trials (RCTs) is often challenging, particularly when working with socially disadvantaged populations who are often termed ‘hard-to-reach’ in research. Here we report the recruitment strategies and costs for the Trial for Healthy Relationship Initiatives in the Very Early years (THRIVE), an RCT evaluating two group-based parenting interventions for pregnant women. Methods THRIVE aimed to recruit 500 pregnant women with additional health and social care needs in Scotland between 2014 and 2018. Three recruitment strategies were employed: (1) referrals from a health or social care practitioner or voluntary/community organisation (practitioner-led referral), (2) direct engagement with potential participants by research staff (researcher-led recruitment) and (3) self-referral in response to study advertising (self-referral). The number of referrals and recruited participants from each strategy is reported along with the overall cost of recruitment. The impact of recruitment activities and the changes in maternity policy/context on recruitment throughout the study are examined. Results THRIVE received 973 referrals: 684 (70%) from practitioners (mainly specialist and general midwives), 273 (28%) from research nurses and 16 (2%) self-referrals. The time spent in antenatal clinics by research nurses each month was positively correlated with the number of referrals received (r = 0.57; p < 0.001). Changes in maternity policies and contexts were reflected in the number of referrals received each month, with both positive and negative impacts throughout the trial. Overall, 50% of referred women were recruited to the trial. Women referred via self-referral, THRIVE research nurses and specialist midwives were most likely to go on to be recruited (81%, 58% and 57%, respectively). Key contributors to recruitment included engaging key groups of referrers, establishing a large flexible workforce to enable recruitment activities to adapt to changes in context throughout the study and identifying the most appropriate setting to engage with potential participants. The overall cost of recruitment was £377 per randomised participant. Conclusions Recruitment resulted from a combination of all three strategies. Our reflections on the successes and challenges of these strategies highlight the need for recruitment strategies to be flexible to adapt to complex interventions and real-world challenges. These findings will inform future research in similar hard-to-reach populations. Trial registration International Standard Randomised Controlled Trials Number Registry ISRCTN21656568. Retrospectively registered on 28 February 2014


2010 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Smita Shah ◽  
Brett G. Toelle ◽  
Susan M. Sawyer ◽  
Jessica K. Roydhouse ◽  
Peter Edwards ◽  
...  

The Physician Asthma Care Education (PACE) program significantly improved asthma prescribing and communication behaviours of primary care paediatricians in the USA. We tested the feasibility and acceptability of a modified PACE program with Australian general practitioners (GP) and measured its impact on self-reported consulting behaviours in a pilot study. Recruitment took place through a local GP division. Twenty-five GP completed two PACE Australia workshops, which incorporated paediatric asthma management consistent with Australian asthma guidelines and focussed on effective communication strategies. Program feasibility, usefulness and perceived benefit were measured by questionnaires before the workshop and 1 month later, and an evaluation questionnaire after each workshop. GP were universally enthusiastic and supportive of the workshops. The most useful elements they reported were communication skills, case studies, device demonstrations and the toolkit provided. GP self reports of the perceived helpfulness of the key communication strategies and their confidence in their application and reported frequency of use increased significantly after the workshops. The PACE program shows promise in improving the way in which Australian GP manage asthma consultations, particularly with regard to doctor–patient communication. The impact of the modified PACE Australia program on the processes and outcomes of GP care of children with asthma is now being measured in a randomised controlled trial.


2021 ◽  
pp. archdischild-2020-321197
Author(s):  
Taco Jan Prins ◽  
Corine Rollema ◽  
Eric van Roon ◽  
Tjalling de Vries

ObjectiveEvaluating the reporting of safety data of medication in paediatric randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in 2017–2018 compared with our earlier study.DesignLiterature search with a systemic appraisal of adverse drug event reporting.Main outcome measuresQuality of reporting of safety data using Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) and Ioannidis scores in paediatric drug RCTs. The CONSORT score consists of nine recommendations of the CONSORT Group issued to improve the quality of reporting adverse events. The Ioannidis score is based on these advices. We considered a CONSORT score of at least 6 and an Ioannidis score of at least 3 as sufficient.ResultsWe reviewed 100 RCTs published in 2017 and 2018. Ninety-four (94%) articles mentioned adverse events compared with 78% in the earlier study. Fifty-seven per cent used a standardised method for reporting adverse events compared with 34% in our earlier study. In 26 of the articles, the expected adverse events were defined, and 27 articles had a preset standardised scale for adverse events. Of these, 62 articles (62%) had a CONSORT score of 6 or higher compared with 18% in 2010. In the present study, 67% had an Ioannidis score of 3 or higher, whereas in the earlier study this was 29%. Both differences are statistically significant (p<0.05).ConclusionsReporting safety data in paediatric RCTs has improved over the past 10 years. However, there is still room for improvement and for further improvement. Authors and editors should give more attention to methods for collecting, reporting and presenting safety data of RCTs in studies and manuscripts.


2007 ◽  
Vol 191 (S50) ◽  
pp. s78-s84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Hodgson ◽  
Chris Bushe ◽  
Robert Hunter

BackgroundRandomised controlled trials (RCTs) are the gold standard for evaluating treatment efficacy. However, the outcomes of RCTs often lackclinical utility and usually do not address real-world effectivenessAimsTo review how traditional RCTs may be triangulatedwith other methodologies such as observational studies and pragmatic trials by highlighting recently reported studies, outcomes used and their respective meritsMethodLiterature review focusing on drug treatmentResultsRecently reported observational and some pragmatic studies show a degree of consistency in reported results and use outcomes that have face validity for cliniciansConclusionsNo single experimental paradigm or outcome provides the necessary data to optimise treatment of mental illness in the clinical setting


2019 ◽  
pp. 18-36
Author(s):  
I. V. Melekestsev

The review of the reconstructions of the eruptive activity of the Yellowstone Caldera Complex (YCC) in the USA allows to suggests three groups of arguments supporting that the “volcanic super-eruption of Yellowstone” is not likely to occur in the coming hundreds or thousands of years. First is the gradual weakening of the volcanic potential of the magmatic source (which is the frontal lobe of the magmatic super-flow, and not the mantle plume) during the last 2 million yeats. Second is the impact of the repeated occurrence of ice sheets in the YCC area during the past 640 thousand years. Finally, the equivalent super-eruption, in terms of energy released and the mass of exploded material, had already occurred at about 70 thousand years ago, and since that time, the YCC has passed from the volcanic to the hydrothermal evolutionary stage.


Author(s):  
William B. Meyer

IN THE MID-1830s, the young Nathaniel Hawthorne sat reading "what once were newspapers"—a bound volume of New England gazettes ninety-odd years old. Comparing the daily life that they portrayed with his own, Hawthorne was struck by how different and how much more severe the weather appeared to have been in the past. "The cold was more piercing then, and lingered farther into the spring," he decided; "our fathers bore the brunt of more raging and pitiless elements than we"; "winter rushed upon them with fiercer storms than now—blocking up the narrow forest-paths, and overwhelming the roads. 1 He was not alone in thinking so. Another resident of Salem, Dr. Edward Holyoke, had been of the same opinion. In his later years, the doctor spoke as the classic authority on the weather, the Oldest Inhabitant. Born in 1728, he lived until 1829, the full span of the century that Hawthorne judged mostly at secondhand, and he had kept a daily temperature log for the better part of it. A newspaper in 1824 reported a general belief that the seasons were "more lamb-like" than in earlier times. An English visitor a few years later was frequently told that the climate was moderating. Cold and snowstorms had grown less intense and less frequent: such had been, wrote John Chipman Gray in the 1850s, "and is perhaps still a prevailing impression among the inhabitants of New-England." All the same, that impression of the century gone by was wrong. Gray, who maintained that the winters had not changed, also tried to explain why intelligent observers could have supposed that they had. On one point, he granted, they were correct. Certainly the effects of the weather were not what they had once been. But there was no evidence that a shift in the weather was responsible. Holyoke's own records, analyzed after his death, did not bear out his belief that winter cold and storms had weakened in his lifetime. As Gray pointed out, if the impact of weather on New Englanders had changed, it was because New England society had changed.


2019 ◽  
Vol 92 (1099) ◽  
pp. 20190043 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sian Taylor-Phillips ◽  
Chris Stinton

Fatigue in radiologists may be responsible for a large number of medical errors. This review describes the latest research on fatigue in radiology. This includes measurement methods, and recent evidence on how fatigue affects accuracy in laboratory test conditions and in clinical practice. The extensive opportunities for future research in the area are explored, including testing interventions to reduce fatigue-related error, and further understanding of which fatigue measures correlate with errors. Finally we explore the possibility of answering these questions using large population-based observational studies and pragmatic integrated randomised controlled trials.


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