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Favourite papers in infectious diseases 2005
Reflection and Reaction
Favourite papers in infectious diseases 2005 In the December 2004 issue of The Lancet Infectious Diseases, we published a list favourite papers in infectious diseases as nominated by the journal’s editorial board.1 Here we repeat the exercise for papers published between September 2004 and the end of August 2005. The procedures for selecting and ranking papers were the same as described previously. In total, 35 articles from just nine journals received nominations. The journals most often cited were The Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, and Clinical Infectious Diseases. When the numbers were counted, the top five papers were actually seven, with three papers in equal fifth place (panel). The study by Stephen Luby and colleagues that tops the list describes a community randomised trial of an extremely simple intervention—hand washing—in squatter camps in Karachi, Pakistan. Among children in households that received plain soap the incidences of pneumonia and diarrhoea were reduced by 50% or more compared with controls. In the light of these results, one of the editorial board members who voted for the paper calls hand washing “the most important medical remedy for children in developing countries”. The theme that emerges clearly from the list of top papers is antibiotic resistance, with articles on multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, the association between outpatient antibiotic use and resistance, and two on community-acquired meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Surprisingly perhaps, no papers on the hot topic of the moment—avian influenza—made it into the top five. However, three articles on this subject were nominated,
Panel: Seven favourite papers 1 Luby SP, Agboatwalla M, Feikin DR, et al. Effect of handwashing on child health: a randomised controlled trial. Lancet 2005; 366: 225–33. 2 Greenberg RN, Kennedy JS, Clanton DJ, et al. Safety and immunogenicity of new cellcultured smallpox vaccine compared with calf-lymph derived vaccine: a blind, singlecentre, randomised controlled trial. Lancet 2005; 365: 398–09. 3 Leimane V, Riekstina V, Holtz TH, et al. Clinical outcome of individualised treatment of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in Latvia: a retrospective cohort study. Lancet 2005; 365: 318–26. 4 Miller LG, Perdreau-Remington F, Rieg G, et al. Necrotizing fasciitis caused by community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in Los Angeles. N Engl J Med 2005; 352: 1445–53. 5= Cutts F, Zaman S, Enwere G, et al. Efficacy of nine-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine against pneumonia and invasive pneumococcal disease in The Gambia: randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Lancet 2005; 365: 1139–46. 5= Goossens H, Ferech M, Vander Stichele R, et al. Outpatient antibiotic use in Europe and association with resistance: a cross-national database study. Lancet 2005; 365: 579–87. 5= Robinson DA, Kearns AM, Holmes A, et al. Re-emergence of early pandemic Staphylococcus aureus as a community-acquired meticillin-resistant clone. Lancet 2005; 365: 1256–58.
which would have easily pushed avian influenza onto the list if the accumulated votes had been for a single paper. If predictions of an pandemic come to pass, influenza should figure among the topics of next year’s favourite papers, but only time will tell.
John McConnell The Lancet Infectious Diseases, London NW1 7BY, UK 1
McConnell J. Favourite papers in infectious diseases 2004. Lancet Infect Dis 2004; 4: 723.
Submit online to The Lancet Infectious Diseases The Lancet Infectious Diseases now has a dedicated online submission and peer-review website known as EES—a customised version of Editorial Manager, one of the main commercially available systems. Authors can submit manuscripts online and track their progress through the editorial process. Reviewers will be invited through EES and can use the system to send editors their comments on the paper they have been invited to review. Although our intention is for papers to be submitted online, authors without access to the internet will still be able to send a manuscript on disk to the journal office in London. Editors and the journal office will offer assistance to authors and reviewers who may be unfamiliar with EES. http://infection.thelancet.com Vol 5 December 2005
Authors and reviewers can also use a 24 h telephone service for support on the following numbers: USA and Canada +1 888 834 7287 (toll-free for US and Canadian callers); Asia and Pacific +81 3 5561 5032; Europe and rest of world: +353 61 709 190. Our parent journal, The Lancet, is also live in EES, and we plan to add the other Lancet specialty titles in the coming months. We hope you will enjoy using this new service and we look forward to hearing any feedback you might have.
Information for authors: http://www.thelancet.com/ authors/infectious/authorinfo EES site for The Lancet Infectious Diseases: http://ees.elsevier.com/ thelancetid EES site for The Lancet: http://ees.elsevier.com/thelancet
John McConnell, Mark Harrington The Lancet Infectious Diseases, London NW1 7BY, UK
737
Favourite papers in infectious diseases 2005 In the December 2004 issue of The Lancet Infectious Diseases, we published a list favourite papers in infectious diseases as nominated by the journal’s editorial board.1 Here we repeat the exercise for papers published between September 2004 and the end of August 2005. The procedures for selecting and ranking papers were the same as described previously. In total, 35 articles from just nine journals received nominations. The journals most often cited were The Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, and Clinical Infectious Diseases. When the numbers were counted, the top five papers were actually seven, with three papers in equal fifth place (panel). The study by Stephen Luby and colleagues that tops the list describes a community randomised trial of an extremely simple intervention—hand washing—in squatter camps in Karachi, Pakistan. Among children in households that received plain soap the incidences of pneumonia and diarrhoea were reduced by 50% or more compared with controls. In the light of these results, one of the editorial board members who voted for the paper calls hand washing “the most important medical remedy for children in developing countries”. The theme that emerges clearly from the list of top papers is antibiotic resistance, with articles on multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, the association between outpatient antibiotic use and resistance, and two on community-acquired meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Surprisingly perhaps, no papers on the hot topic of the moment—avian influenza—made it into the top five. However, three articles on this subject were nominated,
Panel: Seven favourite papers 1 Luby SP, Agboatwalla M, Feikin DR, et al. Effect of handwashing on child health: a randomised controlled trial. Lancet 2005; 366: 225–33. 2 Greenberg RN, Kennedy JS, Clanton DJ, et al. Safety and immunogenicity of new cellcultured smallpox vaccine compared with calf-lymph derived vaccine: a blind, singlecentre, randomised controlled trial. Lancet 2005; 365: 398–09. 3 Leimane V, Riekstina V, Holtz TH, et al. Clinical outcome of individualised treatment of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in Latvia: a retrospective cohort study. Lancet 2005; 365: 318–26. 4 Miller LG, Perdreau-Remington F, Rieg G, et al. Necrotizing fasciitis caused by community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in Los Angeles. N Engl J Med 2005; 352: 1445–53. 5= Cutts F, Zaman S, Enwere G, et al. Efficacy of nine-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine against pneumonia and invasive pneumococcal disease in The Gambia: randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Lancet 2005; 365: 1139–46. 5= Goossens H, Ferech M, Vander Stichele R, et al. Outpatient antibiotic use in Europe and association with resistance: a cross-national database study. Lancet 2005; 365: 579–87. 5= Robinson DA, Kearns AM, Holmes A, et al. Re-emergence of early pandemic Staphylococcus aureus as a community-acquired meticillin-resistant clone. Lancet 2005; 365: 1256–58.
which would have easily pushed avian influenza onto the list if the accumulated votes had been for a single paper. If predictions of an pandemic come to pass, influenza should figure among the topics of next year’s favourite papers, but only time will tell.
John McConnell The Lancet Infectious Diseases, London NW1 7BY, UK 1
McConnell J. Favourite papers in infectious diseases 2004. Lancet Infect Dis 2004; 4: 723.
Submit online to The Lancet Infectious Diseases The Lancet Infectious Diseases now has a dedicated online submission and peer-review website known as EES—a customised version of Editorial Manager, one of the main commercially available systems. Authors can submit manuscripts online and track their progress through the editorial process. Reviewers will be invited through EES and can use the system to send editors their comments on the paper they have been invited to review. Although our intention is for papers to be submitted online, authors without access to the internet will still be able to send a manuscript on disk to the journal office in London. Editors and the journal office will offer assistance to authors and reviewers who may be unfamiliar with EES. http://infection.thelancet.com Vol 5 December 2005
Authors and reviewers can also use a 24 h telephone service for support on the following numbers: USA and Canada +1 888 834 7287 (toll-free for US and Canadian callers); Asia and Pacific +81 3 5561 5032; Europe and rest of world: +353 61 709 190. Our parent journal, The Lancet, is also live in EES, and we plan to add the other Lancet specialty titles in the coming months. We hope you will enjoy using this new service and we look forward to hearing any feedback you might have.
Information for authors: http://www.thelancet.com/ authors/infectious/authorinfo EES site for The Lancet Infectious Diseases: http://ees.elsevier.com/ thelancetid EES site for The Lancet: http://ees.elsevier.com/thelancet
John McConnell, Mark Harrington The Lancet Infectious Diseases, London NW1 7BY, UK
737