World Journal of Oncology Has Gained an Impact Factor of 5.2 by Journal Citation Reports

World Journal of Oncology has been publishing original contributions describing basic research and clinical investigation that cover cellular, molecular, prevention, diagnosis, therapy, translational oncology, and prognosis aspects of cancer. All publications have been indexed in the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed database since 2010, including 50 from 2022. Its robust collection of publications demonstrates its commitment to advancing the scientific understanding and clinical management of cancer.

Journal Citation Reports (JCR), which is integrated with the Web of Science, is published annually by Clarivate, and provides journal impact factors (IFs) that rank academic journals in the natural and social sciences from all over the world. The 2022 version was published at the end of June 2023, and included 21,522 journals from 112 countries, where 13,668 were science journals and the rest included social science and arts and humanities journals. Data provided in the 2022 version prove to be an invaluable resource for researchers, librarians, and academic institutions as they make informed decisions about journal subscriptions and research dissemination.

IF is calculated by dividing the number of citations for articles published in the Web of Science indexed journals in the previous 2 years during the index year by number of articles published in our journal in previous 2 years (Fig. 1). This year, World Journal of Oncology gained its first IF of 5.2. This means that the articles published during 2020 or 2021 in World Journal of Oncology have been cited 5.2 times on average. This ranks World Journal of Oncology 47 of 317 journals in Oncology category of JCR. This is quite a triumph given that we are among the top prestigious journals, such as Cancer Science (IF = 5.7), American Journal of Cancer Research (IF = 5.3), International Journal of Oncology (IF = 5.2), Cancers (IF = 5.2), Molecular Cancer Research (IF = 5.2) and Chinese Journal of Cancer Research (IF = 5.1). In fact, World Journal of Oncology was ranked higher than some leading journals of the field such as Frontiers in Oncology, Breast Cancer, Cancer Medicine, JCO Oncology Practice, EJSO, BMC Cancer, Annals of Surgical Oncology, Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, and Oncology.

Figure 1.

Calculation formula of impact factor.

As mentioned in our previous editorial article [1], World Journal of Oncology promotes articles from around the world to address diversity in oncology. To this end, we investigated the top 10 countries that contributed the most papers to the World Journal of Oncology in the most recent 3 years which were: USA, Japan, China, Mexico, Israel, India, Nepal, Nigeria, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Indonesia, Italy, and Saudi Arabia (seven countries tied in nineth place), in that order. Among the most cited papers published in World Journal of Oncology during the last 2 years, one-third were on “global oncology”. These include reports from developing countries including a review of personalized medicine in the developing world [2], reports on breast cancer in Jamaica [3], in Nigeria [4], and in Mexico [5], on oral cancer in the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries [6], on non-Hodgkin lymphoma [7], and on ovarian cancer [8] in Mexico. The remaining two-thirds were: four review articles on the epidemiology of renal cell carcinoma [9], management of melanoma [10], metastatic renal cell carcinoma [11], and rare urogenital cancers [12]; five original articles: the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database analysis of esophageal cancer [13], sarcopenia and visceral adiposity on effect of immunotherapy [14] and as a biomarker [15] in non-small cell lung cancer, effect of rapamycin on the radio-sensitivity [16], and programmed death-ligand 1 receptor (PD-L1) expression as a prognosticator of triple negative breast cancer [17]; and four case reports: cervical cancer with OHVIRA (obstructed hemivagina and ipsilateral renal anomaly) syndrome [18], metformin on breast cancer with diabetes [19], scalp leiomyosarcoma management [20] and the lung cancer community [21] during coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Top journals citing World Journal of Oncology were Cancers, Frontiers in Oncology, International Journal of Molecular Sciences, Cureus, Scientific Reports, Frontiers in Pharmacology, Cancer Medicine, and Biomedicines. It is somewhat interesting that none of the top five most read articles in the last 12 months, which were N6-methyladenosine in nasopharyngeal carcinoma [22], dihydrolipoamide S-acetyltransferase (DLAT)T as a biomarker for hepatocellular carcinoma [23], PD-L1 expression in Mexican breast cancer [24], review on extramedullary multiple myeloma [25], and abemaciclib for metastatic breast cancer [26], was among the top cited papers, which indicate the gap between papers being read and cited.

In addition to IF published in JCR, Scopus publishes CiteScore, which is the number of citations received by a journal in 1 year to documents published in the 3 previous years, divided by the number of documents indexed in Scopus published in those same 3 years. The differences between CiteScore and IF are that the former uses a 3-year window while the latter uses a 2-year window, and the former includes all document types indexed by Scopus (include articles, reviews, conference papers, book chapters and data papers). While the World Journal of Oncology only includes articles and reviews, it gained a Scopus CiteScore of 5.0. Scopus also publishes Scopus Scimago Journal & Country Rank (SJR) that ranks World Journal of Oncology 82 among 375 journals in Oncology category, which is among the top quartile of indexed journals.

These scores are not only a prestige and honor, but also attest to the impact that our work is providing to the world. In the end, the value of research is in delivery and sharing of new scientific knowledge. Even if one may have discovered a huge truth that may change the world, there will be no impact if that knowledge is not shared. At this point, the most authenticated media that delivers the scientific information are the journals, and the number of citations that is reflected in those scores demonstrate the magnitude of the impact that our World Journal of Oncology is providing. I would like to use this opportunity to formally thank the Editorial Board and all the ad hoc reviewers who devoted their time and effort to review the submitted papers that made this happen. With this excellent IF and Scopus CiteScore, we expect to receive even more manuscript submissions to World Journal of Oncology, and we will continue our effort to publish impactful manuscripts that will be cited often and be the foundation for many following research studies.

Financial Disclosure

None to declare.

Conflict of Interest

None to declare.

Author Contributions

KT contributed to the study design. KC did the literacy search. KT, MGKB and KC wrote the manuscript.

Data Availability

The authors declare that data supporting the findings of this study are all available within the article and in public domain including PubMed.