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It’s Not Your Father’s—or Your Mother’s—JCEM!

Editor-in-Chief

We hope you’ve noticed that JCEM has a sleeker profile in response to our readers’ preferences. When the Society’s clinical endocrinologists were recently polled, they said their JCEM subscription was among the benefits they valued most. But they also had some beefs. The Journal had become a behemoth—a victim of its own success in attracting submissions from authors from around the world seeking the best place to publish their work. In the same survey, endocrine clinicians specified the Journal features they preferred: peer-reviewed clinical studies, practical clinical reviews, disease state updates, clinical practice guidelines, experts addressing challenging clinical issues, and summaries of relevant articles not in JCEM itself.

Well, JCEM is responding to those wishes. First, we’ve become leaner and meaner, with a 10% reduction in pages this past year. We’ve done this, in part, by our word limits for articles. We’ve also become more discriminating in our peer review, raising the quality of published articles with a resulting lower acceptance rate: 27% today vs. 39% two years ago. With this January’s issue, the editors are establishing more rigorous standards for both clinical and genetic research submissions. All clinical trials must now have been prospectively registered with a database, preferably www.clinicaltrials.gov. ¹ The main aim of this measure—one being taken by other prominent general and subspecialty medical journals ²—is to prevent the deep-sixing of trial results that prove disappointing to the sponsor. The editors have also participated in an ASBMR-led effort to ensure that clinical investigators have full access to primary study data and relevant analyses. Beginning this month, authors submitting to JCEM must attest that this has been the case. We want to give to our clinician readers the accuracy and transparency they need from clinical trials to guide their patient care. There’s also been some "belt tightening" in the requirements for genetic and genome-wide association studies to assure their scientific rigor and permit readers to assess their biological and clinical significance. ³ These include guidelines for sample size and use of validation sets, as well as the desirability of functional studies to demonstrate the relevance of genetic findings to associated phenotypes and disease states.

Remembering that "Clinical" is our middle name, we’re adding two new features this year with endocrine consultants in mind. These join the Journal’s long-standing Clinical Reviews, Clinical Controversies, and Extensive Clinical Experiences. In this issue, the first Approach to the Patient article appears. Each Approach will be authored by a luminary in clinical endocrinology—the person you’d like to call or e-mail about a tough case. Approach articles will address a challenging case, recommending specific diagnostic and therapeutic strategies based on evidence, acknowledging controversies, and providing practical management tips. Second, we will publish our inaugural Update review next month. Updates will summarize recent clinically relevant literature in a field of endocrinology and metabolism, such as andrology, bone disease, or thyroid disorders. They will highlight what a highly respected leader believes are the most clinically salient papers in their discipline over the past year or two.

These new special features will join JCEM-published clinical practice guidelines, which have already become benchmarks for scholarly endocrine practice. In 2006, we published three Endocrine Society guidances: Androgen Therapy in Women, Testosterone Therapy in Adult Men with Androgen Deficiency Syndromes Evaluation, and Treatment of Adult Growth Hormone Deficiency. We also published the recommendations of an independent authoritative panel on Care of Girls and Women with Turner Syndrome. All of these were peer-reviewed by JCEM, and the editors believe the authors would agree that each of them is even better as a result. JCEM’s editors rejected an equal number of guidelines and related meta-analyses that didn’t pass muster.

In 2007, there will be more changes. Our current mean time-to-first-notification is so brief (25 days) and rapid electronic publication so prompt (5 days) that every JCEM submission is a Rapid Communication. Consequently, this category is being relegated to the waste bin of publishing history. Additional innovations—being called JCEM Plus—will be unveiled at ENDO 2007. They will underscore where the Journal stands and whom we serve.

Credit for these accomplishments goes to the Journal’s associate editors, editorial board, and staff—all of whom devote tremendous wisdom and effort to assure JCEM’s success. In addressing the needs of our clinically oriented audience, we enjoy strong support from the Society’s officers, oversight committees, and its Strategic Publications Task Force. Most of all, of course, our authors and readers are responsible for JCEM’s success. Thanks to you all!

View larger version (145K): [in this window] [in a new window]   FIG. 1. Paul W. Ladenson, M.D.

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	Footnotes

² DeAngelis CD, Drazen JM, Frizelle FA, et al. Clinical trial registration: a statement from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. JAMA 2004;15;292:1363–1364.

³ http://jcem.endojournals.org/misc/itoa.shtml

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