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D. Romero‐Pérez, J.M. Ramos, B. Encabo, I. Belinchón, Randomized trials in top dermatological journals, 2009–13, British Journal of Dermatology, Volume 175, Issue 5, 1 November 2016, Pages 1089–1093, https://doi.org/10.1111/bjd.14329
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Funding sources: no external funding.
Conflicts of interest: none declared.
Dear Editor, Clinical research provides the evidence base for improvements in the quality of medical care and helps both overall and in dermatology.1,2,3 Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) provide the highest available level of evidence to guide such improvements.4 There is little information available about the current topics in research on dermatology. Dermatological journals are an obvious and important mechanism for disseminating the results of RCTs relevant to dermatological care.
There are some medical disciplines with studies that have analysed the research topics of RCTs,5,6,7,8,9 but this has yet to happen for dermatology. It is therefore worthwhile for dermatologists to learn of the main research topics in dermatology available in RCTs. The aim of our study is to describe the research topics, funding sources, study population and country of origin in RCTs recently published in the top dermatological journals.
We conducted a descriptive study of RCTs indexed in PubMed between 1 January 2009 and 31 December 2013 and published in the top seven dermatological journals with the highest impact factors (IF) (as cited in the 2013 edition of Journal Citation Reports – Web of Science):10Journal of Investigative Dermatology (IF 6·37); Pigment Cell & Melanoma Research (IF 5·64); Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology (IF 5·00); Archives of Dermatology (IF 4·30); Acta Dermato‐Venereologica (IF 4·24); Experimental Dermatology (IF 4·11); and British Journal of Dermatology (IF 4·10). In January 2013, the name of Archives of Dermatology was changed to JAMA Dermatology. Both were considered to be the same journal. RCTs were identified by searching the selected journals for articles classified by MEDLINE as ‘randomized controlled trial’ and by performing an unrestricted search that examined titles, keywords and abstracts containing the word ‘random’.
