JTO Clinical and Research Reports Is Born

After years of benign neglect and the nihilistic attitudes of patients and health care workers alike, lung cancer has emerged as the one disease in which the major advances in precision oncology and immunotherapy have led to significant gains in survival. From EGFR to ALK, ROS1, BRAF, MET, RET, NTRK, ERBB2, and NRG aberrations, targetable oncogenic drivers seem to be often prevalent in NSCLC. These advances in genomics and in the use of the programmed death-ligand 1 and programmed cell death protein 1 inhibitors have led to an explosion in research manuscripts in lung cancer. The flagship journal of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC), the “Journal of Thoracic Oncology (JTO),” has seen tremendous growth in its profile over the past 4 years and is now a high-impact journal. There are, therefore, a large number of meritorious manuscripts, which are not being accepted for publication in JTO. In 2019, over 1600 manuscripts were rejected by JTO; however, a number of these deserve to be published.

With this background, the IASLC leadership and Board of Directors approved a proposal to establish a second journal. JTO Clinical and Research Reports (JTO CRR), the IASLC’s first open-access (OA) journal makes its debut in the first quarter of 2020. The decision to make this journal OA was based on the events that have occurred over the past few years, which suggest that strictly OA journals (“gold OA”), as opposed to “hybrid OA” journals such as JTO (in which the publication is print but OA is available), are the future of scientific publishing.

Currently, 22% of the articles published in oncology are OA. More and more authors may need to publish their articles through a gold OA journal rather than a hybrid one, as some funding bodies may choose to not provide funding for hybrid publication channels. The new “plan S” that is currently being considered by several European funding bodies, for example, would not allow funded authors to publish in a subscription-based journal such as JTO. Despite this growing interest in OA publishing, finding a high-quality OA journal can be challenging. Some OA journals have minimal peer review and publish all submitted manuscripts. In recent years, several high-volume OA journals have been dropped from key indexing services, suggesting a potential lack of rigor in their peer review processes. Thus, this is a perfect time to introduce a high-quality OA journal that will provide a medium for all good science in thoracic oncology which is fit to be published. These manuscripts will include the following:

• •A more clinical focus, whereas JTO is translational.
• •Top articles whose authors wish to publish in a purely OA journal.
• •Articles that could not make the cut for JTO but still represent good-quality science.
• •Article types that are not currently considered by JTO or are published in limited numbers, such as case reports.
• •The phase I thoracic oncology clinical trials.
• •Well-performed single-arm phase II trials.
• •Subset analysis of previously published trials.
• •Impactful retrospective studies.
• •Database analysis.
• •Large single-institution series.

Other article types and instructions for authors can be found on the JTO CRR website (https://www.editorialmanager.com/jtocrr).

As can be imagined, an undertaking such as establishing a new journal requires close collaboration and diligent work by a large number of people. I thank our readers and the IASLC members who have been very supportive of the second IASLC journal and have encouraged us in this endeavor. Colleagues at the IASLC office and the Board of Directors have been most helpful and supportive, as have our Associate Editors. Finally, I need to specifically mention a few key individuals who have played pivotal roles in the launch of this journal. Our past President, Professor Giorgio Scagliotti, made the launching of this second journal one of the cornerstones of his presidency. Our CEO, Mr. Dave Mesko, has been a pillar of support, and our indefatigable Managing Editor, Ms. Mary Todd, supported by our Editorial Consultant, Dr. Vun-Sin Lim, worked in the background with our Publisher, Ms. Mary Heffner, to smooth out all the technical details to make this launch successful.

Judging by the number of high-quality manuscripts we have received, I am confident that we will have the same support given to JTO from our readers, authors, and reviewers and that JTO CRR will quickly become the authoritative OA journal in thoracic oncology.