IAO Systematic Review Award 2022 and Best Original Articles

The IAO Systematic Review Award is awarded every year to the best articles in systematic review, including meta-analyses, published in the International Archives of Otorhinolaryngology that seeks to highlight articles that form the foundations and concepts of universal knowledge. ¹ In 2022, it was awarded to the three best systematic and/or literature reviews that were published in the journal in the year 2021 ( Table 1 ). ^{2 3 4} This award was established to encourage the submission of high-quality systematic review articles.

Table 1. Description of the best studies IAO Systematic Review Award 2022.

Place	Author, year	Title	Country	Objective	Issue	DOI
1 st	Hariyanto, Rizki, Kurniawan, 2 2021	Anosmia/Hyposmia is a Good Predictor of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Infection: A Meta-Analysis	Indonesia	To analyze the potential usefulness of anosmia or hyposmia in the detection of the COVID-19 infection.	2021;25(1):e170-e174.	10.1055/s-0040-1719120
2 nd	Prasetyo, Sadhana, Budiman, 3 2021	Nasal Mucociliary Clearance in Smokers: A Systematic Review	Indonesia	The aim of the present study was to look systematically into the current literature and carefully collect and analyze results to explore NMC in smokers.	2021;25(1):e160-e169.	10.1055/s-0040-1702965
3 rd	Saraniti et al., 4 2021	The Impact of Narrow-band Imaging on the Pre- and Intra- operative Assessments of Neoplastic and Preneoplastic Laryngeal Lesions. A Systematic Review	Italy, and Malaysia	To analyze the applications and benefits of narrow-band imaging in detecting premalignant and malignant laryngeal lesions through a comparison with white-light endoscopy.	2021;25(3):e471-e478.	10.1055/s-0040-1719119

Systematic review is a method of evidence synthesis that critically assesses and interprets all relevant research available regarding a particular issue, area of knowledge, or phenomenon of interest. Statistical methods (meta-analysis) are usually included in the analysis and synthesis of results, allowing the increase of the sample size and accuracy of the assessed outcomes. ⁵ Systematic reviews and meta-analysis are at the top of the pyramid of evidence. They provide the highest level of evidence to verify the effectiveness of interventions, help health professionals to stay up to date with latest developments, provide evidence for decision making, enable evaluation of the risks and benefits of interventions, provide inputs for assistance guidelines development, and provide information on prior studies for potential funding sources for new research. ¹ We suggest the use of guidelines for elaboration and conduction of systematic review using well-defined and explicit methods aimed at minimizing biases. ^{5 6}

The competing works must be published in editions 1 to 4 in the year before the award. The rules for manuscript submission are available at http://www.thieme.com/iao . The judging commission, comprising of members of the editorial board, will be coordinated by the chief editor of this journal. Articles will be judged based on scientific merit, including originality, consistency, significance, and impact. The winning authors and co-authors will receive certificates for their work. The best systematic reviews will be announced in the last edition of each volume of the following publication year, thus providing enough time to accumulate citations needed for analyses.

With this effort, we wish to honor and show our appreciation to the deserving authors, and encourage new talents in international otorhinolaryngological research with a commitment to stimulate education and technological development through research and training.

We are pleased to announce the studies IAO Systematic Review Award 2022, as shown in Table 1 .

Best Original Articles

We would like to recognize the outstanding original articles published in the journal IAO in 2021. The articles were selected based on the number of citations received in the Web of Science database ( Table 2 ).

Table 2. Description of the best Original Researches published in 2021.

Title	Country	Objective	Issue	Citations WoS*
A Five-Year Review on Pediatric Foreign Body Aspiration	Malaysia	To review pediatric patients who underwent bronchoscopy due to suspicion of foreign body aspiration at a tertiary center in Malaysia.	2021;25(2):e193-e199.	6
Teleconsultation and Teletreatment Protocol to Diagnose and Manage Patients with Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV) during the COVID-19 Pandemic	Brazil, and Argentina	The aim of the present study was to propose a teleconsultation and teletreatment protocol to manage patients with BPPV during the COVID-19 pandemic.	2021;25(1):e141-e149.	5
Analysis of Ear, Nose and Throat Manifestations in COVID-19 Patients	Egypt	To discuss different ear, nose and throat (ENT) manifestations in COVID-19-positive patients and their relation to other manifestations and to the severity of COVID-19.	2021;25(3):e343-e348.	3
Cerebral Responses to Stationary Emotional Stimuli Measured by fMRI in Women with Persistent Postural-Perceptual Dizziness	Brazil, and USA	This fMRI study used non-moving, but emotionally charged visual stimuli to investigate the brain's activity of PPPD patients and control subjects.	2021;25(3):e355-e364.	3
Zuma Modified Maneuver as a Treatment to Geotropic Lateral Semicircular Canal Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo	Brazil	To verify the possibility of employing the Zuma repositioning maneuver, with a brief modification, as an alternative treatment for geotropic LC-BPPV.	2021;25(2):e255-e257.	3
Laryngopharyngeal Reflux: Symptoms, Signs, and Presence of Pepsin in Saliva - A Reliable Diagnostic Triad	Oman, and India	To evaluate the predictive value of salivary pepsin in diagnosing laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR) as suggested by the results of reflux symptom index (RSI > 13), reflux finding score (RFS > 7), and positive response to treatment with a 4-week course of proton-pump inhibitors.	2021;25(2):e273-e278.	3
Submental Artery Island Flap in Oral Cavity Reconstruction. An Observational, Retrospective Two-centre Study	Colombia, and Spain	To demonstrate the oncological safety and benefits of this flap in oral cavity reconstruction.	2021;25(1):e71-e76.	3
Surgical Management of Retraction Pockets: Does Mastoidectomy have a Role?	Italy	To assess the role of mastoidectomy in the management of retraction pockets added to a tympanoplasty.	2021;25(1):e12-e17.	3
The Role of the Smartphone in the Diagnosis of Vestibular Hypofunction: A Clinical Strategy for Teleconsultation during the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond	Brazil, Argentina, USA	To develop a preliminary model of clinical guidelines for the evaluation by teleconsultation of patients with suspected diagnosis of vestibular hypofunction during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.	2021;25(4):e602-e609.	3

^*Citations Web of Science: highest first

In 2021, 102 articles were published in IAO: 84 Original Articles, 8 Systematic Reviews, 6 Editorials, 2 Update Articles, 1 Letter to the Editor, and 1 Opinion Article ( Figure 1 ).

Fig 1.

Document type – IAO 2021

To analyze the most frequently used terms in the titles and abstracts of all the articles published in 2021, we created a map based on the text data in the VOSviewer software. ⁷ The 4 most frequently used terms were “COVID,” “Head,” “Pandemic,” and “Dizziness.” The thicker the connecting lines, the stronger the connection; the larger the points (nodes), the more their relevance. Clusters are the groups formed through affinity or proximity, and an item's color is determined by the cluster it belongs to ( Figure 2 ).

Fig 2.

Map based on text data by VOSviewer

These exceptional articles are extremely valuable contributions to IAO. On behalf of the Editorial Board, we would like to congratulate all the authors for their excellent work.

We reiterate that all articles in IAO are published open access and do not incur article processing charges.