Abstract

International Journal of Celiac Disease (IJCD) is an international clinical and scientific journal that aims to cover the multiple aspects of celiac disease (CD). With the renewal of the new year of 2018, the IJCD is celebrating four years of academical publications of 170 articles. The objective recognition by the medical, paramedical and the scientific community, represented by the substantial number of articles’ views, downloads, likes and citations, is indicative of a proliferative and successful journal, at least for its first four years.

1. Introduction

International Journal of Celiac Disease (IJCD) is an international clinical and scientific journal that aims to cover the multiple aspects of celiac disease (CD). Being the most prevalent nutrient dependent autoimmune disease, being a “1000 faces” disease, sharing numerous genetic and environmental factors with other autoimmune diseases, continuously changing epidemiological presentations and affecting multi extra-intestinal organs, CD becomes one of the most explored autoimmune conditions ^{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9}. The journal is aimed to stimulate and spread CD knowledge to undergraduate, postgraduate, clinicians, dieticians and all professionals sharing interest in CD. At the special occasion of the entrance of the new year of 2018, it is my pleasure to summarize the four years of the Journal appearance, starting at the end of 2013.

The present editorial will focus on some statistical aspects of the journal content and will highlight the most successful manuscripts, in terms of viewed, downloaded, liked and cited.

2. The Journal in Brief

During the last four years the journal published 170 articles, there were 1,102,425 manuscripts viewed, 412,160 downloaded, 358 cited and 2,503 likes were received. The Google Academic h-index is 8 and the i10-index is 7. It is indexed and cataloged in SCImago Journal Rank (SJR): 0.171, National Library of Medicine (NLM) Catalog, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (AGRIS), JournalTOCs, EZB, OCLC WorldCat, CrossRef - the DOI search tool, Google Scholar and other multiple international catalogs. In November 2014, IJCD was submitted to ISI Thomson Reuters and most recently, an application was forwarded for indexing in Medline/PubMed.

3. The Most Viewed, Downloaded and Cited Manuscripts

Summarizing the most viewed, downloaded, liked and cited manuscripts in the last 4 years of the IJCD, in a decreasing success (Table 1), one can appreciate the most interesting/attractive subjects of the papers. Interestingly, the first one (1) is not concentrated on CD, but in the recent surge in prevalence/incidence of various autoimmune diseases, CD being one of them.

It should be emphasized that the summing of the viewed, downloaded, likes and cited numbers together (total score, Table 1) is biased, since it will be difficult to allocate the value or differential importance for each one of them. I personally think that viewed, downloaded and cited outperform the number of likes. An additional bias is the chronological time effect. Logically, older publications have more time and chances to be viewed and downloaded, as shown in Figure 1. A negative, decreasing, direct correlation can be seen between more recent publication and lower total score. An exception to the rule is reference ¹, published on November, 2015 that stands high up, not following the general trend.

4. Topic Characteristics

Analyzing Table 1, it appears that 6 out of 17 publications concentrated on pathophysiological pathways, five on therapies, included GFD, three on diagnostic modalities, only 1 on clinical presentation and one on hospital cost, in CD. Of note is the high article number dealing with pathophysiology or therapeutic modalities, contrasting the paucity of publications on clinical aspects of CD.

5. Scientific Groups Excellency

Three centers and scientific groups, found a place of honor, due to multiple article. Three out of the 17 came from the same center ^{1, 18, 25}, followed by a group that entered the list by publishing two manuscripts ^{17, 22}. All the five paper follow the above mentioned subject “trends of pathophysiological and therapeutic aspects”.

6. Conclusions

With the renewal of the new year of 2018, the IJCD is celebrating four years of academical publications of 170 articles. The editor and the editorial board and office should be congratulated for the last four years production and achievements. The objective recognition by the medical, paramedical and the scientific community, represented by the honorable number of views, downloads, likes and citations, speaks for itself. We extend our wishes for extended quality work and success, for the benefit of CD patients and their care teams and the scientific community interested in this never ending challenging disease.

Statement of Competing Interests

The manuscript was not granted nor supported and the authors do not have conflict of interest.

References