- Email: [email protected]
Re: Analysis of the Publication Volume of Canadian Ophthalmology Departments from 2005 to 2009: A Systematic Review of the Literature
Correspondence 4. Buckley E, Klombers L, Seaber J, et al. Management of the posterior capsule during pediatric intraocular lens implantation. Am J Ophthalmol. 1993;115:722-8. 5. Awner S, Buckley E, DeVaro J, Seaber J. Unilateral pseudophakia in children under 4 years. J Pediatr Ophthalmol Strabismus. 1996;33:230-6. 6. Enyedi L, Peterseim M, Freedman S, Buckley E. Refractive changes after pediatric intraocular lens implantation. Am J Ophthalmol. 1998;126:772-81. 7. Astle WF, Ingram AD, Isaza GM, Echeverri P. Paediatric pseudophakia: analysis of intraocular lens power and myopic shift. Clin Exper Ophthalmol. 2007;35:201-2. 8. Brady KM, Atkinson CS, Kilty LA, et al. Glaucoma after cataract extraction and posterior chamber lens implantation in children. J Cataract Refract Surg. 1997;23:669 –74. 9. Lundvall A, Zetterstrom C. Complications after early surgery for congenital cataracts. Acta Ophthalmol Scand. 1999; 77:677– 80. 10. O’Keefe M, Fenton S, Lanigan B. Visual outcomes and complications of posterior chamber intraocular lens implantation in the first year of life. J Cataract Refract Surg. 2001;27:2006 –11.
11. Asrani S, Freedman S, Hasselblad V, et al. Does primary intraocular lens implantation prevent “aphakic” glaucoma in children? J AAPOS. 1993; 3:33-9. 12. Michaelides M, Bunce C, Adams GGW. Glaucoma following congenital cataract surgery: the role of early surgery and posterior capsulotomy. BMC Ophthalmol. 2007;7:13-21. 13. Lawrence MG, Kramarevsky NY, Christiansen SP, et al. Glaucoma following cataract surgery in children: surgically modifiable risk factors. Trans Am Ophthalmol Soc. 2005;103:46-55. 14. Astle WF, Alewenah O, Ingram AD, Paszuk A. Surgical outcomes of primary foldable intraocular lens implantation in children: understanding posterior opacification and the absence of glaucoma. J Cataract Refract Surg. 2009;35:1216-22.
Re: Analysis of the Publication Volume of Canadian Ophthalmology Departments from 2005 to 2009: A Systematic Review of the Literature
It would have been appropriate for the authors to check if their search algorithm was effective for one or more randomly selected Canadian institutions. Because they did not validate their methodology, the data are incomplete and the conclusions drawn are likely invalid.
Dear Editor This article, although interesting, contains significant methodologic issues that do a disservice to Canadian Ophthalmology departments. We refer specifically to Table 3 that indicates that the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Alberta had 7 articles published in 2009. The authors’ strategy to only attribute articles to an institution based on first author affiliation leads to misclassification bias. For example, some authors have multiple institutional affiliations. Because there are no formal rules as to how author affiliation should be completed, relying on this entry alone to determine the research contribution of a university is incomplete. Another problem with their methodology is that it is common practice to list the most senior author last. At the University of Alberta, these are not “gift” authorships but instead connote a significant mentorship role in which a senior author guides and/or does research in addition to paper writing and editing. As such, it is not appropriate for the authors to have looked only at first authors. One could also question why second authors were discounted. Looking only at University of Alberta publications in 2009, the authors’ flawed methodology is only 77.8% sensitive.1-9 Furthermore, if one performs a PubMed search within Endnote X3 using search parameters for author name and publication date for only 5 of my colleagues, irrespective of author hierarchy, the University of Alberta was involved in 12 additional publications in 2009.10-21 Even if one accounts for possible misclassification of articles by Damji8,13,14,21 because he moved to Edmonton from Ottawa in 2008, the number listed in Table 3 is still very incomplete.
440
CAN J OPHTHALMOL—VOL. 46, NO. 5, OCTOBER 2011
Can J Ophthalmol 2011;46:439 – 440
0008-4182/11/$-see front matter © 2011 Canadian Ophthalmological Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jcjo.2011.08.002
Christopher J. Rudnisky, Karim F. Damji, Matthew T.S. Tennant, Ian M. MacDonald Correspondence to: Christopher J. Rudnisky, MD, MPH: University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alta. [email protected] REFERENCES 1. Weis E, Shah CP, Lajous M, Shields JA, Shields CL. The association of cutaneous and iris nevi with uveal melanoma: a meta-analysis. Ophthalmology. 2009;116:536-43 e2. 2. Weis E, Rootman J, Joly TJ, et al. Epithelial lacrimal gland tumors: pathologic classification and current understanding. Arch Ophthalmol. 2009;127:1016-28. 3. Ting AY, Lee TK, MacDonald IM. Genetics of age-related macular degeneration. Curr Opin Ophthalmol. 2009;20:369-76. 4. Rudnisky CJ, Lavergne V, Katz D. Visual acuity after intravitreal triamcinolone for diabetic macular edema refractory to laser treatment: a meta-analysis. Can J Ophthalmol. 2009;44:587-93. 5. Ng M, Nathoo N, Rudnisky CJ, Tennant MT. Improving access to eye care: teleophthalmology in Alberta, Canada. J Diabetes Sci Technol. 2009;3:289-96. 6. Macdonald IM. Pharmacogenetics— getting closer. Open Ophthalmol J. 2009;3:46-9. 7. Gan KD, Rudnisky CJ, Weis E. Discussing resident participation in cataract surgery. Can J Ophthalmol. 2009;44:651-4. 8. Damji KF, Chialant D, Shah K, et al. Biometric characteristics of eyes with exfoliation syndrome and occludable as well as open angles and eyes with primary open-angle glaucoma. Can J Ophthalmol. 2009;44:70-5. 9. Asai-Coakwell M, French CR, Ye M, et al. Incomplete penetrance and phenotypic variability characterize Gdf6-attributable oculo-skeletal phenotypes. Hum Mol Genet. 2009;18:1110-21. 10. Zakrzewski PA, Weis E, White VA, Rootman J. Intracellular extraocular muscle light- and heavy-chain deposition disease contributing to compressive optic neuropathy in a patient with preexisting Graves’ orbitopathy. Ophthalmologica. 2010;224:59-62. 11. Arnarsson A, Jonasson F, Damji KF, Gottfredsdottir MS, Sverrisson T, Sasaki H. Exfoliation syndrome in the Reykjavik Eye Study: risk factors for baseline prevalence and 5-year incidence. Br J Ophthalmol. 2010;94: 831-5.
Correspondence 12. Ziaei M, Tennant M, Sanders EJ, Harvey S. Vitreous growth hormone and visual dysfunction. Neurosci Lett. 2009;460:87-91. 13. Kiage DO, Gradin D, Gichuhi S, Damji KF. Ahmed glaucoma valve implant: experience in East Africa. Middle East Afr J Ophthalmol. 2009; 16:151-5. 14. Kassam F, Damji KF, Kiage D, Carruthers C, Kollmann KH. The Sandwich fellowship: a subspecialty training model for the developing world. Acad Med. 2009;84:1152-60. 15. Harvey S, Parker E, Macdonald I, Sanders EJ. Growth hormone is present in the human retina and vitreous fluid. Neurosci Lett. 2009;455:199202. 16. de Leon AR, Soo A, Bonzo DC, Rudnisky CJ. Joint estimation of diagnostic accuracy measures for paired organs—application in ophthalmology. Biom J. 2009;51:837-50. 17. Arnarsson A, Damji KF, Sasaki H, Sverrisson T, Jonasson F. Pseudoexfoliation in the Reykjavik eye study: five-year incidence and changes in related ophthalmologic variables. Am J Ophthalmol. 2009;148:291-7.
18. Aldinger KA, Lehmann OJ, Hudgins L, et al. FOXC1 is required for normal cerebellar development and is a major contributor to chromosome 6p25.3 Dandy-Walker malformation. Nat Genet. 2009;41: 1037-42. 19. Al-Ansari SA, Tennant MT, Greve MD, Hinz BJ, Senior PA. Short report: suboptimal diabetes care in high-risk diabetic patients attending a specialist retina clinic. Diabet Med. 2009;26:1296-300. 20. Ahmad SM, Esmaeli B, Williams M, et al. American Joint Committee on Cancer classification predicts outcome of patients with lacrimal gland adenoid cystic carcinoma. Ophthalmology. 2009;116:1210-5. 21. Canadian Ophthalmological Society. Evidence-based clinical practice guidelines for the management of glaucoma in the adult eye. Can J Ophthalmol. 2009;44(Suppl 1):S7-S93.
Authors’ Response
sessing only first-author affiliation was addressed in our discussion section. Nonetheless, first authors, by definition, bear the greatest responsibility for the study and commonly share affiliations with more senior authors. Overall, we showed an encouraging trend toward greater research productivity in Canadian ophthalmology and the importance of the CJO to Canadian eye researchers. By being the first to report on eye research productivity in Canada, we respectfully submit that a substantial service to Canadian ophthalmology was rendered. Rather than demean our findings, it is hoped that Rudnisky et al. will work constructively with other eye researchers in Canada to further meaningful discourse about developing ways to monitor and assess both the quantity and the quality of eye research performed in this country.
Dear Editor: Contrary to the assertion of Rudnisky et al., our article was never intended to do a “. . . disservice to Canadian ophthalmology departments.” Nor was our article intended to be a substitute for the curricula vitae of every eye researcher in Canada. Rather, we attempted to assess the pattern and output of Canadian eye research in an unbiased manner using a previously reported methodologic framework.1-5 Multiple first-author affiliations are infrequent and we do not believe this is a significant source of methodologic error in our analysis. To demonstrate this we assessed the latest issues of seven randomly selected ophthalmology journals and found that 25 of 27 (Acta Ophthalmologica, August 2011); 18 of 20 (American Journal of Ophthalmology, August 2011); 14 of 15 (Archives of Ophthalmology, August 2011); 19 of 22 (British Journal of Ophthalmology, August 2011); 20 of 23 (Canadian Journal of Ophthalmology, April-June 2011); 28 of 30 (Eye, June-July 2011); and 24 of 24 (Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery, August 2011) of the first authors of original articles in these journals had only one institutional affiliation. A verification of the search algorithm as suggested by Rudnisky et al. is problematic since our study was performed in 2010, and because of the publication time lag, one would need a list of staff members and trainees for each of the years of the past decade to identify those who published between 2005 and 2009. This information is not available from departmental websites, and using a 2010 faculty list would introduce additional bias because staff members and trainees change annually. Moreover, an exhaustive examination of the academic affiliations of non-first-authors of all ophthalmology, neurology, pediatric, and general medical journals would require countless resources; is not practical; and this has not been done in the literature to date. The limitation of as-
Can J Ophthalmol 2011;46:440 – 441
0008-4182/11/$-see front matter © 2011 Canadian Ophthalmological Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jcjo.2011.07.004
Andrew F. Smith,* Jonathan A. Micieli,† Andrew Micieli‡ ⴱAdjunct
Professor (Health Economics), McGill University, Montreal, Que.; †Faculty of Medicine, McGill Univeristy, Montreal, Que.; ‡Department of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ont. Correspondence to: Andrew F. Smith, PhD: [email protected] REFERENCES 1. Falagas ME, Papastamataki PA, Bliziotis IA. A bibliometric analysis of research productivity in parasitology by different world regions during a 9-year period (1995-2003). BMC Infect Dis. 2006;6:56. 2. Bliziotis IA, Paraschakis K, Vergidis PI, et al. Worldwide trends in quantity and quality of published articles in the field of infectious diseases. BMC Infect Dis. 2005;5:16. 3. Michalopoulos A, Bliziotis IA, Rizos M, Falagas ME. Worldwide research productivity in critical care medicine. Crit Care. 2005;9:R258-65. 4. Tsui BC, Li LX, Ma V, et al. Declining randomized clinical trials from Canadian anesthesia departments? Can J Anaesth. 2006;53:226-35. 5. Skevaki CL, Koliaraki V, Papadopoulos NG, et al. Global research productivity in allergy. J Investig Allergy Clin Immunol 2011;21:156-8. Can J Ophthalmol 2011;46:441
0008-4182/11/$-see front matter © 2011 Canadian Ophthalmological Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jcjo.2011.08.010 CAN J OPHTHALMOL—VOL. 46, NO. 5, OCTOBER 2011
441
11. Asrani S, Freedman S, Hasselblad V, et al. Does primary intraocular lens implantation prevent “aphakic” glaucoma in children? J AAPOS. 1993; 3:33-9. 12. Michaelides M, Bunce C, Adams GGW. Glaucoma following congenital cataract surgery: the role of early surgery and posterior capsulotomy. BMC Ophthalmol. 2007;7:13-21. 13. Lawrence MG, Kramarevsky NY, Christiansen SP, et al. Glaucoma following cataract surgery in children: surgically modifiable risk factors. Trans Am Ophthalmol Soc. 2005;103:46-55. 14. Astle WF, Alewenah O, Ingram AD, Paszuk A. Surgical outcomes of primary foldable intraocular lens implantation in children: understanding posterior opacification and the absence of glaucoma. J Cataract Refract Surg. 2009;35:1216-22.
Re: Analysis of the Publication Volume of Canadian Ophthalmology Departments from 2005 to 2009: A Systematic Review of the Literature
It would have been appropriate for the authors to check if their search algorithm was effective for one or more randomly selected Canadian institutions. Because they did not validate their methodology, the data are incomplete and the conclusions drawn are likely invalid.
Dear Editor This article, although interesting, contains significant methodologic issues that do a disservice to Canadian Ophthalmology departments. We refer specifically to Table 3 that indicates that the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Alberta had 7 articles published in 2009. The authors’ strategy to only attribute articles to an institution based on first author affiliation leads to misclassification bias. For example, some authors have multiple institutional affiliations. Because there are no formal rules as to how author affiliation should be completed, relying on this entry alone to determine the research contribution of a university is incomplete. Another problem with their methodology is that it is common practice to list the most senior author last. At the University of Alberta, these are not “gift” authorships but instead connote a significant mentorship role in which a senior author guides and/or does research in addition to paper writing and editing. As such, it is not appropriate for the authors to have looked only at first authors. One could also question why second authors were discounted. Looking only at University of Alberta publications in 2009, the authors’ flawed methodology is only 77.8% sensitive.1-9 Furthermore, if one performs a PubMed search within Endnote X3 using search parameters for author name and publication date for only 5 of my colleagues, irrespective of author hierarchy, the University of Alberta was involved in 12 additional publications in 2009.10-21 Even if one accounts for possible misclassification of articles by Damji8,13,14,21 because he moved to Edmonton from Ottawa in 2008, the number listed in Table 3 is still very incomplete.
440
CAN J OPHTHALMOL—VOL. 46, NO. 5, OCTOBER 2011
Can J Ophthalmol 2011;46:439 – 440
0008-4182/11/$-see front matter © 2011 Canadian Ophthalmological Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jcjo.2011.08.002
Christopher J. Rudnisky, Karim F. Damji, Matthew T.S. Tennant, Ian M. MacDonald Correspondence to: Christopher J. Rudnisky, MD, MPH: University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alta. [email protected] REFERENCES 1. Weis E, Shah CP, Lajous M, Shields JA, Shields CL. The association of cutaneous and iris nevi with uveal melanoma: a meta-analysis. Ophthalmology. 2009;116:536-43 e2. 2. Weis E, Rootman J, Joly TJ, et al. Epithelial lacrimal gland tumors: pathologic classification and current understanding. Arch Ophthalmol. 2009;127:1016-28. 3. Ting AY, Lee TK, MacDonald IM. Genetics of age-related macular degeneration. Curr Opin Ophthalmol. 2009;20:369-76. 4. Rudnisky CJ, Lavergne V, Katz D. Visual acuity after intravitreal triamcinolone for diabetic macular edema refractory to laser treatment: a meta-analysis. Can J Ophthalmol. 2009;44:587-93. 5. Ng M, Nathoo N, Rudnisky CJ, Tennant MT. Improving access to eye care: teleophthalmology in Alberta, Canada. J Diabetes Sci Technol. 2009;3:289-96. 6. Macdonald IM. Pharmacogenetics— getting closer. Open Ophthalmol J. 2009;3:46-9. 7. Gan KD, Rudnisky CJ, Weis E. Discussing resident participation in cataract surgery. Can J Ophthalmol. 2009;44:651-4. 8. Damji KF, Chialant D, Shah K, et al. Biometric characteristics of eyes with exfoliation syndrome and occludable as well as open angles and eyes with primary open-angle glaucoma. Can J Ophthalmol. 2009;44:70-5. 9. Asai-Coakwell M, French CR, Ye M, et al. Incomplete penetrance and phenotypic variability characterize Gdf6-attributable oculo-skeletal phenotypes. Hum Mol Genet. 2009;18:1110-21. 10. Zakrzewski PA, Weis E, White VA, Rootman J. Intracellular extraocular muscle light- and heavy-chain deposition disease contributing to compressive optic neuropathy in a patient with preexisting Graves’ orbitopathy. Ophthalmologica. 2010;224:59-62. 11. Arnarsson A, Jonasson F, Damji KF, Gottfredsdottir MS, Sverrisson T, Sasaki H. Exfoliation syndrome in the Reykjavik Eye Study: risk factors for baseline prevalence and 5-year incidence. Br J Ophthalmol. 2010;94: 831-5.
Correspondence 12. Ziaei M, Tennant M, Sanders EJ, Harvey S. Vitreous growth hormone and visual dysfunction. Neurosci Lett. 2009;460:87-91. 13. Kiage DO, Gradin D, Gichuhi S, Damji KF. Ahmed glaucoma valve implant: experience in East Africa. Middle East Afr J Ophthalmol. 2009; 16:151-5. 14. Kassam F, Damji KF, Kiage D, Carruthers C, Kollmann KH. The Sandwich fellowship: a subspecialty training model for the developing world. Acad Med. 2009;84:1152-60. 15. Harvey S, Parker E, Macdonald I, Sanders EJ. Growth hormone is present in the human retina and vitreous fluid. Neurosci Lett. 2009;455:199202. 16. de Leon AR, Soo A, Bonzo DC, Rudnisky CJ. Joint estimation of diagnostic accuracy measures for paired organs—application in ophthalmology. Biom J. 2009;51:837-50. 17. Arnarsson A, Damji KF, Sasaki H, Sverrisson T, Jonasson F. Pseudoexfoliation in the Reykjavik eye study: five-year incidence and changes in related ophthalmologic variables. Am J Ophthalmol. 2009;148:291-7.
18. Aldinger KA, Lehmann OJ, Hudgins L, et al. FOXC1 is required for normal cerebellar development and is a major contributor to chromosome 6p25.3 Dandy-Walker malformation. Nat Genet. 2009;41: 1037-42. 19. Al-Ansari SA, Tennant MT, Greve MD, Hinz BJ, Senior PA. Short report: suboptimal diabetes care in high-risk diabetic patients attending a specialist retina clinic. Diabet Med. 2009;26:1296-300. 20. Ahmad SM, Esmaeli B, Williams M, et al. American Joint Committee on Cancer classification predicts outcome of patients with lacrimal gland adenoid cystic carcinoma. Ophthalmology. 2009;116:1210-5. 21. Canadian Ophthalmological Society. Evidence-based clinical practice guidelines for the management of glaucoma in the adult eye. Can J Ophthalmol. 2009;44(Suppl 1):S7-S93.
Authors’ Response
sessing only first-author affiliation was addressed in our discussion section. Nonetheless, first authors, by definition, bear the greatest responsibility for the study and commonly share affiliations with more senior authors. Overall, we showed an encouraging trend toward greater research productivity in Canadian ophthalmology and the importance of the CJO to Canadian eye researchers. By being the first to report on eye research productivity in Canada, we respectfully submit that a substantial service to Canadian ophthalmology was rendered. Rather than demean our findings, it is hoped that Rudnisky et al. will work constructively with other eye researchers in Canada to further meaningful discourse about developing ways to monitor and assess both the quantity and the quality of eye research performed in this country.
Dear Editor: Contrary to the assertion of Rudnisky et al., our article was never intended to do a “. . . disservice to Canadian ophthalmology departments.” Nor was our article intended to be a substitute for the curricula vitae of every eye researcher in Canada. Rather, we attempted to assess the pattern and output of Canadian eye research in an unbiased manner using a previously reported methodologic framework.1-5 Multiple first-author affiliations are infrequent and we do not believe this is a significant source of methodologic error in our analysis. To demonstrate this we assessed the latest issues of seven randomly selected ophthalmology journals and found that 25 of 27 (Acta Ophthalmologica, August 2011); 18 of 20 (American Journal of Ophthalmology, August 2011); 14 of 15 (Archives of Ophthalmology, August 2011); 19 of 22 (British Journal of Ophthalmology, August 2011); 20 of 23 (Canadian Journal of Ophthalmology, April-June 2011); 28 of 30 (Eye, June-July 2011); and 24 of 24 (Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery, August 2011) of the first authors of original articles in these journals had only one institutional affiliation. A verification of the search algorithm as suggested by Rudnisky et al. is problematic since our study was performed in 2010, and because of the publication time lag, one would need a list of staff members and trainees for each of the years of the past decade to identify those who published between 2005 and 2009. This information is not available from departmental websites, and using a 2010 faculty list would introduce additional bias because staff members and trainees change annually. Moreover, an exhaustive examination of the academic affiliations of non-first-authors of all ophthalmology, neurology, pediatric, and general medical journals would require countless resources; is not practical; and this has not been done in the literature to date. The limitation of as-
Can J Ophthalmol 2011;46:440 – 441
0008-4182/11/$-see front matter © 2011 Canadian Ophthalmological Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jcjo.2011.07.004
Andrew F. Smith,* Jonathan A. Micieli,† Andrew Micieli‡ ⴱAdjunct
Professor (Health Economics), McGill University, Montreal, Que.; †Faculty of Medicine, McGill Univeristy, Montreal, Que.; ‡Department of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ont. Correspondence to: Andrew F. Smith, PhD: [email protected] REFERENCES 1. Falagas ME, Papastamataki PA, Bliziotis IA. A bibliometric analysis of research productivity in parasitology by different world regions during a 9-year period (1995-2003). BMC Infect Dis. 2006;6:56. 2. Bliziotis IA, Paraschakis K, Vergidis PI, et al. Worldwide trends in quantity and quality of published articles in the field of infectious diseases. BMC Infect Dis. 2005;5:16. 3. Michalopoulos A, Bliziotis IA, Rizos M, Falagas ME. Worldwide research productivity in critical care medicine. Crit Care. 2005;9:R258-65. 4. Tsui BC, Li LX, Ma V, et al. Declining randomized clinical trials from Canadian anesthesia departments? Can J Anaesth. 2006;53:226-35. 5. Skevaki CL, Koliaraki V, Papadopoulos NG, et al. Global research productivity in allergy. J Investig Allergy Clin Immunol 2011;21:156-8. Can J Ophthalmol 2011;46:441
0008-4182/11/$-see front matter © 2011 Canadian Ophthalmological Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jcjo.2011.08.010 CAN J OPHTHALMOL—VOL. 46, NO. 5, OCTOBER 2011
441