Sci-Bytes> Hot Paper in Medicine
Week of april 17, 2011
"Mortality results from a randomized prostate-cancer screening trial," by Gerald L. Andriole and 24 others, New England Journal of Medicine, 360(13): 1310-9, 26 March 2009.
[Authors' affiliations: 16 North American institutions]
Abstract: "Background. The effect of screening with prostate-specific-antigen (PSA) testing and digital rectal examination on the rate of death from prostate cancer is unknown. This is the first report from the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial on prostate-cancer mortality.
Methods. From 1993 through 2001, we randomly assigned 76,693 men at 10 U. S. study centers to receive either annual screening (38,343 subjects) or usual care as the control (38,350 subjects). Men in the screening group were offered annual PSA testing for 6 years and digital rectal examination for 4 years. The subjects and health care providers received the results and decided on the type of follow-up evaluation. Usual care sometimes included screening, as some organizations have recommended. The numbers of all cancers and deaths and causes of death were ascertained.
Results. In the screening group, rates of compliance were 85% for PSA testing and 86% for digital rectal examination. Rates of screening in the control group increased from 40% in the first year to 52% in the sixth year for PSA testing and ranged from 41 to 46% for digital rectal examination. After 7 years of follow-up, the incidence of prostate cancer per 10,000 person-years was 116 (2820 cancers) in the screening group and 95 (2322 cancers) in the control group (rate ratio, 1.22; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.16 to 1.29). The incidence of death per 10,000 person-years was 2.0 (50 deaths) in the screening group and 1.7 (44 deaths) in the control group (rate ratio, 1.13; 95% CI, 0.75 to 1.70). The data at 10 years were 67% complete and consistent with these overall findings.
Conclusions. After 7 to 10 years of follow-up, the rate of death from prostate cancer was very low and did not differ significantly between the two study groups."
This 2009 report from the New England Journal of Medicine was cited 42 times in current journal articles indexed by Clarivate during November-December 2010. During that two-month period, only three other medicine papers published in the last two years, excluding reviews, attracted higher citation totals during that two-month period. Prior to the most recent bimonthly count, citations to the paper have accrued as follows:
September-October 2010: 38 citations
July-August 2010: 39
May-June 2010: 41
March-April 2010: 39
January-February 2010: 38
November-December 2009: 31
September-October 2009: 43
July-August 2009: 38
May-June 2009: 8
March-April 2009: 3
Total citations to date: 360
SOURCE: Hot Papers Database (Included with a subscription to the print newsletter Science Watch®, available from the Research Services Group of Thomson Reuters. Packaged on a CD that is mailed with each Science Watch issue, the Hot Papers Database contains data on hundreds of highly cited papers published during the last two years. User interface permits searching by author, organization, journal, field, and more. Total citations, as well as citations accrued during successive bimonthly periods, can be assessed and graphed.
Spotlighted Feature
Special Country Features:
Top 20 Countries:
Citations in Five-Year Increments, and the 10th annual list of the
Top 20 Countries in ALL
FIELDS, 2001-August 31, 2011.