Double Trouble

In the September 2015 issue, the European Journal of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (EJCTS) and others published a “Joint statement on redundant (duplicate) publication by the Editors of the undersigned cardio-thoracic journals.”[1] These journals comprise in alphabetical order: Asian Cardiovascular and Thoracic Annals; EJCTS; Heart, Lung and Circulation; Journal of Cardiac Surgery; The Annals of Thoracic Surgery; and The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. Unfortunately, The Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeon (ThCVS) had been left out. Subsequently, it appears that the recent statement was an update of an earlier one from 1999[2] in which the ThCVS had not participated and thus had not been on the mailing list.

Times have changed since 1999, and the current Editor of the ThCVS would have been an avid underwriter of said statement. In fact, he had repeatedly collaborated with several of his fellow Editors from the journals listed above in detecting such unwanted practices over the last years.

It must be stated in all clarity that The Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeon and The Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeon Reports endorse the Joint statement without any constraints and will participate in the combat against redundant publication as outlined in it. We surely do not want to create the impression that we did not sign it and are therefore indifferent about this matter. On the contrary, the attempt at duplicate publication has been an irritating usage by several of our authors, keeping the Editorial Office as well as our reviewers busy for hours which could have been spent on more sensible things.

We, too, have seen it all: the parallel submission of a manuscript to two journals, waiting for the first acceptance only to then withdraw it from the other one; the extension of an already published study by a couple of patients and trying to sell this as new work; but also the rather sophisticated version of, let us call it “inverted results,” which must be mentioned because it is not so easy to detect. If you could show, for instance, that a high level of serum asphalt does significantly extend safe myocardial ischemic time, you can write this up and submit it to Journal A. You can then take the same set of data and report that low levels of serum asphalt have a negative influence on safe myocardial ischemic time and submit this to Journal B. Ingenious, isn't it?

Suffice it to say that the culprits will be found out most of the time. The world of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery is a relatively small one, which comes in handy in this respect. The Editors know each other well, even if they sometimes forget one of their mates, and they are a pretty alert bunch. A serious author should not risk falling into disrepute by trying to push publication counts. Don't even think about it.

• References

• 1 Joint statement on redundant (duplicate) publication by the Editors of the undersigned cardio-thoracic journals. Eur J Cardiothorac Surg 2015; 48 (3) 343
• 2 Joint statement on redundant (duplicate) publication by the Editors of the undersigned cardio-thoracic journals. Eur J Cardiothorac Surg 1999; 16: 1