Publication trend, resource utilization, and impact of the US National Cancer Database: A systematic review

Our plain-English summary of Publication trend, resource utilization, and impact of the US National Cancer Database: A systematic review, by C. Su, C. Peng, E. Agbodza, et al (Medicine, 2018).

The study

• Authors: C. Su, C. Peng, E. Agbodza, H.X. Bai, Y. Huang, G. Karakousis, P.J. Zhang, Z. Zhang
• Journal: Medicine
• Published: 2018;97(9):e9823
• Type of article: Meta-analysis, Systematic review
• Cited by: 37 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher · Free full text

Abstract

Background: The utilization and impact of the studies published using the National Cancer Database (NCDB) is currently unclear. In this study, we aim to characterize the published studies, and identify relatively unexplored areas for future investigations.

Methods: A literature search was performed using PubMed in January 2017 to identify all papers published using NCDB data. Characteristics of the publications were extracted. Citation frequencies were obtained through the Web of Science.

Results: Three hundred 2 articles written by 230 first authors met the inclusion criteria. The number of publications grew exponentially since 2013, with 108 articles published in 2016. Articles were published in 86 journals. The majority of the published papers focused on digestive system cancer, while bone and joints, eye and orbit, myeloma, mesothelioma, and Kaposi Sarcoma were never studied. Thirteen institutions in the United States were associated with more than 5 publications. The papers have been cited for a total of 9858 times since the publication of the first paper in 1992. Frequently appearing keywords congregated into 3 clusters: "demographics," "treatments and survival," and "statistical analysis method." Even though the main focuses of the articles captured a extremely wide range, they can be classified into 2 main categories: survival analysis and characterization. Other focuses include database(s) analysis and/or comparison, and hospital reporting.

Conclusion: The surging interest in the use of NCDB is accompanied by unequal utilization of resources by individuals and institutions. Certain areas were relatively understudied and should be further explored.

In plain English

This was a systematic review that used bibliometric methods. The authors did not study patients. They counted and described published research papers that used the US National Cancer Database (NCDB). In January 2017 they searched PubMed and found 302 articles that met their criteria, published between 1992 and 2016, with 108 in 2016 alone. The papers came from 134 institutions, and Yale University School of Medicine had the most (20). Digestive system cancer was the most studied category (70 papers). No paper studied mesothelioma, bone and joint cancers, eye and orbit cancers, myeloma, or Kaposi sarcoma. The papers had been cited 9858 times in total. Most papers focused on survival (200), on describing clinical and socioeconomic characteristics (191), or on both (108). The authors concluded that growing use of the NCDB was accompanied by unequal use of the resource by individuals and institutions. They also concluded that certain cancers, including mesothelioma, should be studied further. They noted that they searched only PubMed and that older papers have had more time to collect citations.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Systematic review using bibliometric analysis of published papers that used NCDB data
• Who was studied: 302 published articles that used data from the US National Cancer Database, identified through a PubMed search in January 2017 and published from 1992 to 2016
• Main results:
  • The number of publications grew since 2013. There were 108 publications in 2016 alone.
  • The most studied category was digestive system cancer (70 of 302 papers). No paper studied bone and joint cancers, eye and orbit cancers, myeloma, mesothelioma, or Kaposi sarcoma.
  • The 302 papers came from 134 institutions. Yale University School of Medicine had the most (20), followed by Duke University Medical Center (13) and the University of Colorado School of Medicine (13).
  • All the papers together had been cited 9858 times, a mean of 32.6 citations per paper. The most cited paper, an NCDB report on thyroid carcinoma, had 1017 citations.
  • Of the 230 first authors, the 5 with the most papers (2.1%) accounted for 29 (9.6%) of the publications.
  • By main focus, 200 papers analyzed survival and 191 described characteristics, with 108 doing both. Of the rest, 11 focused on database analysis or comparison and 1 on hospital reporting.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that the surging interest in the NCDB was accompanied by unequal use of resources by individuals and institutions. They also concluded that certain cancers, including soft tissue cancer, mesothelioma, leukemia, lymphoma, central nervous system cancer and myeloma, should be further studied.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The results of a bibliometric analysis change with time.
  • Citation counts increase with time, so earlier publications may appear to have an artificially higher impact.
  • Only PubMed was searched, although preliminary searches of Scopus and Embase added few if any papers.

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Systematic Review, Myeloma, Mesothelioma, Sarcoma.

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