Highlights
- •Most cancer imaging studies concerned female breast cancer, prostate cancer, liver cancer, lung cancer, and CNS cancers.
- •Several cancer types have unbalanced publication-to-incidence and unbalanced publication-to-mortality ratios.
- •Some cancers may be overinvestigated, whereas others may be underinvestigated relative to their overall societal importance.
Abstract
Objective
To investigate the proportion of published imaging studies relative to incidence and
mortality rate per cancer type.
Methods
From a random sample of 2500 articles published in 2019 by the top 25 imaging-related
journals, we included cancer imaging studies. The publication-to-incidence and publication-to-mortality
ratios (defined as the publication rate divided by the proportional incidence and
mortality rate, respectively) were calculated per cancer type. Ratios >1 indicate
a higher publication rate compared to the relative incidence or mortality rate of
a specific cancer. Ratios <1 indicate a lower publication rate compared to the relative
incidence or mortality rate of a specific cancer.
Results
620 original cancer imaging studies were included. Female breast cancer (20.2%), prostate
cancer (13.0%), liver cancer (12.9%), lung cancer (8.8%), and cancers in the central
nervous system (8.1%) comprised the top 5 of cancers investigated. Cancers in the
central nervous system and liver had publication-to-incidence ratios >2, whereas nonmelanoma
of the skin, leukemia, stomach cancer, and laryngeal cancer had publication-to-incidence
ratios <0.2. Cancers in the prostate, central nervous system, female breast, and kidney
had publication-to-mortality ratios >2, whereas esophageal cancer, stomach cancer,
laryngeal cancer, and leukemia had publication-to-mortality ratios <0.2.
Conclusion
This overview of published cancer imaging research may be informative and useful to
all stakeholders in the field of cancer imaging. The potential causes of disproportionality
between the publication rate vs. incidence and mortality rates of some cancer types
are multifactorial and need to be further elucidated.
Keywords
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Article Info
Publication History
Published online: March 08, 2022
Accepted:
March 4,
2022
Received in revised form:
March 1,
2022
Received:
December 23,
2021
Identification
Copyright
© 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
