New heights and hot topics inCardiovascular Research

Biography Dr Heather Y. Small, BSc(Hons) MRes PhD is Senior Managing Editor of Cardiovascular Research. She is based in the Journal’s Editorial Office within the Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences at the University of Glasgow, UK. Biography Professor Guzik is the current Editor-in-Chief of Cardiovascular Research. He is the Regius Professor of Physiology and Cardiovascular Pathobiology and an Honorary Consultant Physician in Cardiology at the University of Glasgow. He also serves as a Professor of Medicine at Jagiellonian University Collegium Medicum in Krakow, Poland. Notable recognitions include the honorary Bernard and Joan Marshall Prize in Research Excellence from the BSCR and the prestigious Corcoran Award Lecture at the American Heart Association. He is a recipient of European Research Council Grant. His research focusses on vascular biology, hypertension, and clinical immunology. As part of the current Editorial Team’s ongoing commitment to develop the impact and scope of the Journal,1 we regularly analyse the material published in Cardiovascular Research and carefully assess how these have been received by the scientific community. This helps us to develop future directions of the Journal. Such analysis should be viewed in the context of continuity from the previous Editorial Office.2 Here, we present a brief analysis of the recent 2017 impact factor (IF) release followed by an overview of hot topics that attracted strong interest from our readers from papers published in 2016 to 2017. The 2017 IF of Cardiovascular Research has reached 6.290, the highest ever score received by the journal and a 6.6% increase on the 2016 IF. Previously, the highest IF was 6.127 in 2007. The Journal is number 16 in the Cardiac & Cardiovascular Systems Category, rising three places in 2017. In 2017, authors cited Cardiovascular Research 22 195 times. This is the second highest number of citations in the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Journals family last year (Table 1); this shows that the papers published in the Journal attract long-term interest. In addition, the immediacy index for 2017 increased by 24% from the previous year (Figure 1). The IF measures the number of citations in each year (i.e. 2017) to items published in the last 2 years (i.e. 2016 and 2015). This gives an excellent opportunity to emphasize the success of the immediate past Editor-in-Chief Professor Karin Sipido and her excellent team in delivering such a positive trend in this important metric. Total citations in 2017 within the European Society of Cardiology Journals Family Data correct at point of extraction from Web of Science on 25 July 2018. Total citations in 2017 within the European Society of Cardiology Journals Family Data correct at point of extraction from Web of Science on 25 July 2018. Highlighting impact in Cardiovascular Research. (A) Immediacy index of Cardiovascular Research shows promising growth. (B) Editors’ Choice articles are associated with a higher number of total citations for papers published in 2016 and 2017. Data correct at point of extraction from Web of Science on 13 September 2018. On behalf of both the immediate past and current Editors-in-Chief, we wish to pass on our sincere gratitude to our authors for choosing to publish their work with us. Also, to our Editors, Editorial Board and Reviewers for their time and effort in improving the manuscripts and upholding the reputation of the Journal to publish studies of the highest scientific rigour. Without the Cardiovascular Research community, the success of the Journal would not be possible.3 Overall, 225 original articles and 62 reviews were published in Cardiovascular Research between 2016 and 2017; 28 of which were review articles featured in specialized spotlight issues. These articles have had an excellent level of visibility attracting, in total, 2705 citations in this short period. Original articles and reviews from 2016 to 2017 had an average of 8.6 citations per article. In addition, almost 20% of these papers (42/225) have attracted 15 or more citations. Of the top 50 cited articles, encouragingly, the majority (58%) are original articles. This underlines the strong reputation of Cardiovascular Research as the place to publish cutting-edge, high impact novel discoveries in cardiovascular science. The previous Editorial team undertook research to determine whether an association existed between articles selected for Editors’ Choice and the number of citations. Previous data showed that Editors’ Choice articles have consistently aligned with a higher number of citations since 2014. Analysis of articles from 2016 to 2017 agree with the previous results; Editors’ Choice articles attracted an average of 11.73 ± 0.97 citations relative to 6.03 ± 0.49 in those articles that were not selected (Figure 2). There is, of course, potential bias that the Editorial Team will highlight the highest quality papers that would attract higher citations regardless. In addition, a paper selected as Editor’s Choice may influence the reader to cite it. On the other hand, Editor’s Choice articles are also freely available, and this could increase their visibility and number of citations. Definitive evidence as to whether open access papers receive a citation advantage over papers that are not freely available is an active area of research, yet, without a definitive conclusion. We assessed the top papers by citations published in Cardiovascular Research between 2016 and 2017 to identify ‘hot topics’ that attracted high visibility. This selection of articles covered many aspects of both cardiac and vascular biology and disease; including some papers examining co-morbidities such as obesity4–7 and diabetes.8–11 This reflects the broad spectrum of high quality original science published by the Journal. Just under 20% of the top 100 cited papers (19/100) investigated non-coding RNAs as part of their central hypothesis. The boom in micro-RNA (miRNA) research that occurred some 10 years ago shows no signs of waning interest, at least within the cardiovascular field. Concurrently, the Journal published three reviews that covered recent developments regarding the role of miRNAs in vascular pathophysiology12–14 and in adipose tissue.15 Original articles on miRNAs covered the ‘cardiac’16–21 and ‘vascular’22,23 spectrum of the Journal; including co-morbidities such as diabetes.24,Cardiovascular Research also published original articles that have looked at more recent additions to the growing family of non-coding RNAs such as long non-coding RNA (lncRNA)25–28 as players in cardiac hypertrophy and heart failure. In addition to mechanistic studies, articles that have evaluated the potential of circulating non-coding RNAs such as miRNAs29 and circular RNA30 as biomarkers have received a lot of attention from readers.31 Translational studies that reported mechanistic discoveries using cells derived from patients were among the top 20% of the most highly cited manuscripts.32–35 One of these papers Multilevel analyses of SCN5A mutations in arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia/cardiomyopathy suggest non-canonical mechanisms for disease pathogenesis by Te Riele et al. was awarded the Best Paper in Cardiovascular Research Prize for 2018 at the recent ESC Congress. Papers that covered aspects of vascular biology and pathophysiology composed approximately one-third of the top cited items. Within this category, manuscripts that focussed on atherosclerosis and lipid biology made up 40%. There was a clear trend for articles focussing on the role of immune cells in the establishment and maintenance of the atherosclerotic plaque.36–40 From a translational perspective, the lessons learned for basic scientists from recent cardiovascular inflammation reduction clinical trials were nicely summarized in a review article.41 There were also two original articles that highlighted the protective role of the adipokine, Omentin-1, in artherogenesis.42,43 The Journal published papers that provided novel insights on existing therapeutic targets for targeting atherosclerosis such as PCSK944,45 and emerging strategies at a pre-clinical stage of development.46,47 The other papers within the vascular category covered a broad range of specialities such as aneurysms,48 angiogenesis,49 calcification,50,51 extracellular matrix,52–55 endothelial cell biology,56 endothelial progenitor cells,57 and vascular pathophysiology of hypertension.58,59 In addition, the recent Spotlight Issue on the Dysfunctional Adipocyte and Cardiovascular Disease covered, in detail, the role of the adipose tissue in regulating vascular function in health and disease.60,61 The right ventricle has different physiological and molecular properties from the left ventricle and is involved in specific pathologies. Some mechanisms of disease are distinct from the left ventricle; whilst others involve a certain degree of interaction between the two. The recent Spotlight Issue on the Right Ventricle compiled an excellent set of reviews on this topic from an international group of authors.62 This was complimented by several original articles published during this time period that explored the role of the right ventricle63–65 in pulmonary arterial hypertension, and further extended these findings into the vasculature pathophysiology of the disease.66,67 Papers focussed on cardiac biology formed much of the list of top cited items (∼60%); reflecting the Journal’s traditional strength in this area but also the large number of specialities under this umbrella term. Among the major topics, cardioprotection,68–74 myocardial infarction/ischaemic injury,75–85 calcium signalling and arrhythmias,86–94 and heart failure95–102 were approximately equally represented. Atrial fibrillation was also a key topic, having been featured in a Spotlight Issue in 2016.103 Articles from more niche fields such as congenital heart disease104,105 and valvular disease106 were also present in the top cited papers. The Journal featured a Spotlight Issue on Metabolic Cardiomyopathies107,108 in response to the exciting findings of recent clinical trials, which have shown that drugs that affect metabolism may also have benefit for heart failure patients. In addition, several interesting original articles published in Cardiovascular Research have explored the role of mitochondria in cardioprotection,109 heart failure,110 and myocardial infarction.111 The analysis presented here of the most highly cited papers in Cardiovascular Research from 2016 and 2017 highlights the broad spectrum of research covered by the Journal and underlines its reputation as the place to publish and read the highest quality basic and translational cardiovascular science. Conflict of interest: none declared.