It is my distinct pleasure to write this editorial for the special ocular oncology issue of MEAJO. Ocular oncology is a highly specialized and focused subspecialty in ophthalmology that has made significant progress in the diagnosis and treatment of sight and life threatening diseases. The topics included in this issue represent a spectrum of ocular oncologic problems from eyelid tumors to intraocular masses and orbital lesions. Many distinguished authors have contributed their interesting and in some instances groundbreaking work to this issue. Dr. Carol Shields and associates submitted the largest choroidal metastasis series currently available in the literature comprising 1111 patients.[1] It has been more than 20 years since the publication of their 1997 paper on uveal metastases which included 420 patients at that time.[2] Other interesting topics in this issue include orbital metastasis, staging of uveal melanoma, retinoblastoma treatment, eyelid carcinoma, and intraocular surgery for melanoma.[3,4,5,6,7]
Some of the articles are original research papers, whereas others are review articles or short case reports. We have contributions from many countries which gives the reader the opportunity to be aware of global practices and challenges in the field of ocular oncology.
I would like to thank Dr. Deepak Edward, the Editor-in-Chief of MEAJO, and the editorial team of MEAJO, Mr. Mohammed Mohsin in particular, for their collaboration, help, and understanding in the preparation of this issue. I also extend my sincere thanks to all our contributing authors from various countries for their effort and time in the preparation of articles in this issue.
After being indexed on PubMed, MEAJO is now listed as an emerging Science Citation Index (SCI) journal. It is on the way of being included in the SCI-expanded group of journals. Nevertheless, our policy is never to say “enough.” As part of the MEAJO family, we will continue to improve our journal to make it an ever more referenced journal on PubMed with higher impact factor scores. In an era where predatory journals are emerging at an unprecedented pace and pose a threat to academic medicine, we call on authors from all countries to consider MEAJO as a safe, reliable, and honest alternative platform for publication of their work.
With my warmest regards.
References
- 1.Shields CL, Welch RJ, Malik K, Acaba-Berrocal LA, Selzer EB, Newman JH, et al. Uveal metastasis: Clinical features and survival outcome of 2214 tumors in 1111 patients based on based on primary tumor origin. Middle East Afr J Ophthalmol. 2018;25:81–90. doi: 10.4103/meajo.MEAJO_6_18. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
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