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Semin Thromb Hemost 2024; 50(01): 001-003
DOI: 10.1055/s-0043-1772842
Editorial

Welcome to Seminars in Thrombosis and Hemostasis 2024: 50 Years of Publishing

Emmanuel J. Favaloro 
1   Department of Haematology, Sydney Centres for Thrombosis and Haemostasis, Institute of Clinical Pathology and Medical Research (ICPMR), Westmead Hospital, Westmead, NSW, Australia
2   School of Dentistry and Medical Sciences, Faculty of Science and Health, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia
3   School of Medical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney, Westmead Hospital, Westmead, New South Wales, Australia
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Welcome to the start of another year with Seminars in Thrombosis and Hemostasis (STH), this being my 16th year anniversary as Editor in Chief, so still a teenager! In contrast, 2024 marks the 50th birthday of STH, which first published in 1974.[1] A half century of publishing is a landmark worthy of celebration. We started the celebrations in 2022, when we published our first Celebratory issue.[2] A second Celebratory issue was published in 2023.[3] Both issues were rich with content of a historical nature related to the fields of thrombosis and hemostasis. The current issue represents the third in the series of historical papers. We plan to prepare a fourth and final compilation later in this year.

As now standard for these “welcome” editorials, I will again sincerely thank all past and current contributors to STH over the many years, as well as to all past, current, and future Guest Editors who commit their time to advance STH, and of course the current and past Editorial teams. There has been no major overhaul of the general editorial team at the time of writing, although some adjustments will continue to occur over the coming years. However, in 2024, we do bid farewell to some of our senior editors. Professor Hau Kwaan has decided to retire from STH, after 10 years as a Senior Editor. Professor Kwaan first contributed to STH in 1979,[4] just a few years after STH began publishing, and so representing 45 years of association with this journal—a much longer tenure than my own. Also departing as Senior Editors are Anne Mett Hvas and Ton Lisman. Professor Hvas was recently appointed dean of the Faculty of Health at Aarhus University,[5] and she felt she could not commit sufficient time to continue on as a Senior Editor. Professor Hvas was a Senior Editor of STH from 2021. Ton Lisman was recently appointed as the new (co-)editor in chief of the Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis,[6] and thus could not remain on as a Senior Editor of STH. Professor Lisman was Senior Editor of STH from 2015. Both Anne Mett Hvas and Ton Lisman will stay on as Associate Editors of the journal, and we hope them the best for their future roles and success in the field. To help fill the void of their departure, we are ‘promoting’ Kristi Smock (USA) and Julie Brogaard Larsen (Denmark) from our editorial board to positions as Senior Editors. Both have contributed to several Guest Editorial positions in the past. Kristi Smock completed two issues around ‘Laboratory Diagnostics’ with Co-Guest Editor Robert Gosselin in 2022[7] and 2023[8], and is currently compiling a third issue with Co-Guest Editor Karen Moffat. Julie Brogaard Larsen has Co-Guest edited several past issues of STH from 2017[9] [10] [11], and is currently Co-Guest Editing her 4th issue of STH on the topic of Cancer with Tua Gyldenholm. We welcome Kristi and Julie into their new Senior Editor positions, and look forward to their further contributions to our journal.

I also take this opportunity to once again thank the journal production team at Thieme Medical Publishers for their high production standards and for facilitating both the print and online issues of the journal, and in particular, Mansi Agarwal, the current Production Editor for STH, and her production team.

This annual Editorial once represented the opportunity to reflect on our journal's Impact Factor and other journal metrics. However, because of the continuing move to online publication ahead of print publication, a separate detailed editorial was published on these topics late last year.[12] In addition to detailing information on the journal's Impact Factor, in part in comparison to trends from other journals publishing in the Thrombosis and Hemostasis space, I also shared many other publication metrics. I will summarize the information on Impact Factor as follows: (1) the 2022 Impact Factor was 5.7, which marked an anticipated decrease over the 2021 Impact Factor, which was 6.938; (2) in turn, the 2021 Impact Factor for STH marked a substantive increase over the 2020 Impact Factor, which was 4.180, and the 2019 Impact Factor, which was 2.892; (3) the 2021 Impact Factor of 6.398 also represents the highest Impact Factor ever achieved by STH, and this was largely due to some highly cited papers related to COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019); (4) the previous highest Impact Factor (4.524) was 10 years ago in 2011; (5) in general, most thrombosis and hemostasis focused journals showed an increase in Impact Factor from 2020 to 2021, largely on the back of several highly cited COVID-19-related papers, and then a subsequent fall in the 2022 Impact Factor due to “waning interest” in COVID-19. It should also be noted that the calculations used to generate the yearly Impact Factors have evolved over recent years to ensure better representation of online publications, which often precede print versions by several months. Indeed, some journals now only publish online. I have included in this editorial a summary of the Impact Factor trends for journals publishing in the thrombosis/hemostasis space ([Fig. 1]). I have also included a figure showing the placement of STH in the journal categories of “Hematology” and “Peripheral Vascular Disease” ([Fig. 2]) from 2019.

Zoom Image
Fig. 1 Impact Factor trends for main journals publishing in the Thrombosis and Hemostasis space—years 2001–2022.
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Fig. 2 Journal Impact Factor percentiles for STH for years 2019 to 2022, in the categories of “Hematology” and “Peripheral Vascular Disease.”

As I now also always do for the Welcome Editorial, I confirm that we, as always, will continue to develop plans for the future content of this journal, and we are confident that our journal will be able to continue to bring its readers the high-quality journal that is expected of us. Currently confirmed topics for issues that we plan to publish over the next 12 or so months are listed in [Table 1]. Naturally, we recognize the need to retain some flexibility in our plans, and to potentially add additional material of current interest and controversy as the need arises. Notably, COVID-19 was a recent primary focus of the journal, and we published four issues devoted to this catastrophic disease over recent years.[13] [14] [15] [16] However, as we now head back to “business as usual,” those issues represent the last that STH will specifically focus on COVID-19; henceforth, any COVID-19 material accepted for publication in STH will simply be placed in our standard “nonthemed” composite issues. Indeed, material on COVID-19 seems to be increasingly replaced by material on the long-term consequences of COVID-19, sometimes called “Long COVID” or perhaps better described as “post-acute sequelae of COVID-19” (PASC).

Table 1

Current planned topics for future issues of Seminars in Thrombosis and Hemostasis include the following

• Editorial compilations (continuing series focusing on bleeding disorders or laboratory aspects of thrombosis and hemostasis)

• Recent advances in thrombosis and hemostasis (continuing series focusing on thrombotic disorders)

• Laboratory diagnostics for thrombosis and hemostasis (continuing series focusing on laboratory diagnostics)

• Celebrating 50 years of Seminars in Thrombosis and Hemostasis (a series of issues celebrating 50 years of STH)

• Contact activation: an important but under-recognized pathway of hemostasis

• Cancer-associated thrombosis and beyond: biomarkers, treatments, and cancer-hemostasis interactions

Abbreviation: STH, Seminars in Thrombosis and Hemostasis.


In any case, we look forward to another interesting year of reading in 2024!


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Conflict of Interest

None declared.


Address for correspondence

Emmanuel J. Favaloro, PhD, FFSc (RCPA)
Department of Haematology, Sydney Centres for Thrombosis and Haemostasis, Institute of Clinical Pathology and Medical Research (ICPMR), Westmead Hospital
Westmead, NSW, 2145
Australia   

Publication History

Article published online:
28 August 2023

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Zoom Image
Fig. 1 Impact Factor trends for main journals publishing in the Thrombosis and Hemostasis space—years 2001–2022.
Zoom Image
Fig. 2 Journal Impact Factor percentiles for STH for years 2019 to 2022, in the categories of “Hematology” and “Peripheral Vascular Disease.”