Sex, crime and surgery: Interactive CardioVascular and Thoracic Surgery in the age of fake news

The European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (EACTS) was founded in 1986 by a group of enthusiastic cardiothoracic surgeons led by the late Francis Fontan in Bordeaux [1]. The mission of this new association included from the beginning the publication of a scientific journal [2]. In the ensuing years, the EACTS has produced 3 scientific publications, namely the European Journal of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (EJCTS) founded by Hans Borst, the Interactive CardioVascular and Thoracic Surgery (ICVTS) founded by Ludwig K. von Segesser and the MultiMedia Manual for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (MMCTS) founded by Marko Turina [3, 4]. MMCTS, which focuses on animated content, was from the beginning an online-only publication. EJCTS was initially a print-only publication with a subsequent online version. ICVTS began with an online edition, in which the content was first open for discussion and then printed after 30 days. The print version included the comments from the virtual discussion [5, 6]. While the print and online versions of the EACTS flagship journal EJCTS will continue in those formats under the leadership of Friedhelm Beyersdorf, Editor-in-Chief, the EACTS council decided to move ICVTS to online-only publication. This decision is a cost-saving move in a modern world driven by the World Wide Web, an ever-growing behemoth, which is perceived to provide content for free but in reality does not. ICVTS has performed extremely well with its dual online and print strategy. Although it struggled in the beginning to be recognized by the big databases such as PubMed or MEDLINE and to get an impact factor, it finally succeeded. In 2017, its impact factor was 1.857 (2017), which was higher than the impact factor of EJCTS (1.181 in 2000) when the decision was made to start ICVTS. Table 1 lists the most frequently downloaded articles in 2017 that are published in ICVTS throughout 2016 and 2017. Twelve articles deal with cardiac, 7 with thoracic and 3 with vascular issues, including some with multiple allocations, and address comprehensively all 3 fields of activities mentioned in its title. In addition, these contributions come from all over the world, which was the intention from the beginning for ICVTS. The most frequently downloaded articles in 2017 that are published in ICVTS throughout 2016 and 2017 The most frequently downloaded articles in 2017 that are published in ICVTS throughout 2016 and 2017 The positive outcome of the dual strategy of having both print and online versions of ICVTS and EJCTS is that the articles are readily available in the print issues and are easily accessible online for EACTS members, at least for recent publications. Unfortunately, older MMCTS content can no longer be downloaded from the publication’s website (www.mmcts.org) and has even disappeared from the publication’s index. EJCTS, which was supposed to offer free access through the journal’s website (www.ejcts.org) for content older than 1 year, no longer offers the earlier content such as the first presidential address by Francis Fontan [1]. Obviously, the ability of one of the multiple parties involved in web hosting to interfere with access rights is problematic. Furthermore, long-term secure storage of web-only publications and other data remains unsolved. One encounters various degrees of difficulty in deciphering hieroglyphs from ancient times, but this problem can sometimes be solved, even for languages that have disappeared, by algorithms that track the most frequent characters and combinations thereof. Fortunately, there are also documents written in stone thousands of years ago like the Rosetta stone, which provide translations. However, for electronic media, much higher hurdles exist for accessing content that is not even 25 years old, including hardware that is no longer functional, software that is no longer supportable, stored data that are no longer readable and various combinations of all of these. In addition, there is no way to decipher binary code, e.g. 001000111001100110011, without the specific key. Therefore, it is difficult to foresee how web-only publications can thrive in the long term. Some may consider autodestruction of content beyond a defined shelf life as advantageous because it may free storage capacity for new content. However, such new content is by definition soon no longer new and, therefore, not necessarily worthwhile storing. Today, there is obviously a shift from the written word that stands the test of time towards short messages and tweets constructed to draw attention to themselves. Sex, crime and surgery are key ingredients for the latter because sex sells, crime pays and surgery fails. Matthias Siepe, Editor-in-Chief, and his team will have to wisely manage the art of scandal to keep ICVTS online in the current world of fake news. Read on at www.ICVTS.org …