Interpreting the Medical Literature

Intent of the Chapter

The goals of this chapter are: (1) To provide a brief overview of how a research manuscript is treated from the moment of submission to its publication date; (2) to provide a practical guide for accessing, interpreting the quality of, and implementing the knowledge gained from reading the medical literature; and (3) to identify and avoid the pitfalls of indiscriminate use or the misuse of the published evidence.

Types of Journals

With the advent of the Internet, researchers and consumers of research have an overwhelming array of journals to consider for submitting and reading original work. A journal’s focus and target audience can vary. Some journals are known as general medical journals because they include work from many different fields within medicine. Examples include The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), The BMJ (formerly known as the British Medical Journal), and The Lancet . Most medical journals, however, focus on a particular medical specialty, or they may highlight particular topics such as research methods or health policy.

Journals can be accessed as printed and bound periodicals requiring an active print subscription, through a designated website offering a selection of free articles or articles requiring payment to view, or often by using a combination of the two delivery methods. The quality and reputation of journals can vary greatly—some require little to no peer review and an upfront payment in exchange for quick online publication of a manuscript of questionable quality (see Predatory Journals , later). Others maintain extremely high standards for manuscript acceptance and editorial review. Publication in a medical journal with an established history as a traditional print journal, even while it maintains a distinct web presence, is usually an indicator that a published manuscript has been subjected to peer review and represents a worthwhile contribution to the medical literature.

A number of professional societies in anesthesiology publish journals of peer-reviewed literature relevant to the field and include some of the most reputable journals within the field, such as the American Society of Anesthesiologists (Anesthesiology) , the Royal College of Anaesthetists/The College of Anaesthetists of Ireland/the Hong Kong College of Anaesthesiologists (British Journal of Anaesthesia), and the International Anesthesia Research Society (Anesthesia & Analgesia) .

Types of Journal Articles

Although each journal’s priorities for content may vary, for the most part, journals publish similar types of articles. These article types can be grouped into the following broad categories: original research, review articles, brief reports or letters, case reports, and editorials.

Original research is the most familiar and most common type of article that gets published. Original research usually consists of a scientific manuscript that reports the full results from a research study and can represent any of the study designs that were described in Chapter 89 .

Review articles summarize the existing scientific research on a given topic and are a good way for readers to quickly familiarize themselves with the current evidence within an area of research. Review articles are comprehensive, typically written by experts in the field, and are often solicited by the editors of a journal. The authors will usually frame published research within the context of other contemporaneous works and the current and future directions of the research topic being reviewed.

Brief reports and letters provide concise research reports that address a timely issue or spur further research if published before a full original research manuscript has been submitted. Letters are also an opportunity for readers to submit arguments extending or rebutting articles that were previously published in that journal.

Case studies allow researchers or clinicians to share specific examples of unusual or unexpected clinical findings in a single patient that may be instructive to a broader readership. A case series is similar to a case study but describes similar clinical phenomena across multiple patients.

Editorials are essays that encompass the opinion of the author about a subject, usually of topical relevance, or highlight the important scientific contributions of an original research article that was published in the same journal issue. Similar to review articles, editorials are usually solicited by the journal editor, written by experts in the field, and provide important context with which to frame the original research article.

The Peer Review Process

The peer review process is an important component of publishing original research. Most respected journals, whether web-based or traditional print journals, will have a robust peer review process in place. Once an original research manuscript has been submitted by the authors, the journal editors will usually make a rapid decision about whether the study topic is appropriate for their readership. Authors will either receive notification that their submission was rejected without review, or that the manuscript has been sent out for review to at least two other experts in the field. Reviewers are asked to rate various aspects of the manuscript, including its readability, novelty, methods, validity of results , and potential impact on the field. They will often provide constructive feedback to the authors on ways the study can be substantially improved. Reviewers will then make a recommendation to the journal editors whether the study should be accepted, revised and resubmitted, or rejected. The editors will consider the reviewers’ comments in making the final decision about the manuscript’s disposition.

Although different journals may have different terminologies for these final decisions, in general, they fall into the following categories: accept as written, conditional acceptance (i.e., accept with minor revisions or accept with major revisions), revise and resubmit, or reject. Acceptance of a manuscript without any changes is extremely rare. Conditional acceptance , though frequently considered to be a positive outcome, is not a guarantee of acceptance. The editors still retain the right to reject the manuscript unless the manuscript’s authors have satisfactorily addressed any concerns that are deemed important enough to be raised in the outcome letter. More common is a decision to revise and resubmit . The editor may require substantial changes to the original manuscript and usually requests a new manuscript submission that clearly highlights within the text what changes have been made in response to the outcome letter. Most of the time, the authors are also required to submit an accompanying document that responds to each of the points that may have been raised by the editor and reviewers during the peer review process. Finally, the editors can still decide to reject a manuscript after sending it out for review.

Once a manuscript has been through the peer review process and deemed acceptable for publication, the journal will then format the entire manuscript to fit the journal’s style. This usually includes recreating or reformatting the tables and figures that were submitted with the manuscript, as well as detailed copyediting for grammar, punctuation, and clarity. Proofs of the formatted article, which show how the article will actually appear when it is finally printed, are sent to the author for final approval. Simultaneously, the journal will select the print issue that will feature the accepted article and decide whether the manuscript would benefit from an accompanying editorial. Although print journals usually require a lead time of several months after an original article has been accepted before it is actually published, a journal will often set an earlier date for online publication, typically referred to as “e-pub ahead of print.” Expediting the dissemination of original research by publishing electronically on a journal’s website allows readers to obtain the earliest access to interesting and timely research.

Primary Literature

In the past, readers needed to have a journal subscription or access to a medical library to read published articles. In the academic setting, it was very common for attending physicians to photocopy important articles and distribute them to their trainees. As in so many other arenas, access to research articles has been transformed with the arrival of the Internet, and most articles are now easily accessible online, either directly through the journal’s website, or through indexed search engines. Primary literature refers to these original research articles that are authored by the researchers who performed the study and are published in peer-reviewed journals.

Most readers are probably familiar with PubMed , a free resource maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information at the US National Library of Medicine, which is located at the National Institutes of Health. PubMed provides access to MEDLINE, an online database that contains more than 28 million references to journal articles in life sciences, with a concentration on biomedicine. The database includes medical literature published from 1966 to the present day, with citations from more than 5200 journals in approximately 40 languages worldwide, with new articles being added daily. Search results include a list of article citations with links to the electronic full-text article if available. Although PubMed is most frequently used to access the primary literature, this resource is useful for accessing the secondary literature as well, which is described in the following section. Searching PubMed is free of charge, and many articles are available for viewing without a subscription or an academic institutional affiliation, including through the archival of full-text articles in PubMed Central. PubMed provides various mechanisms to access articles that are not freely available on the Internet, although fees may apply.

Secondary Literature

In addition to primary sources, physicians may rely on other resources to remain informed about recent advances in their field. The term secondary literature is used to refer to written summaries of the primary literature that help synthesize or evaluate primary sources for the purpose of dissemination and incorporation of evidence-based medicine into practice. These articles summarize the primary literature to varying degrees and with variable quality, depending on their purpose. Systematic reviews and metaanalyses are, in and of themselves, valued as high-quality research and important contributions to the medical literature. For example, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews is a well-known and highly regarded resource for systematic reviews in health care. Readers should be aware, however, that narrative reviews differ from systematic reviews in that they are not obliged to provide unbiased information reflecting the totality of available knowledge. Narrative reviews can be useful, and an efficient source of information particularly when written by authors who might be expected to have an expert command of the available literature, but fundamentally differ from systematic reviews because they are not as rigorous or comprehensive in their approach to manuscript selection, which must be considered in their interpretation. Types of reviews and metaanalyses are further discussed in Chapter 89 .

Clinical practice guidelines fall into the category of secondary literature as well. These are typically written by professional groups or government agencies to help guide clinician decision making and will often indicate the level of evidence supporting the practice recommendations that are being made. Other more filtered—yet still evidence-based—distillations of the existing research exist to facilitate clinical decision making by practicing clinicians at the bedside. Examples of the latter include websites like UptoDate and WebMD.

Traditional and Social Media

Finally, the medical literature can be indirectly accessed via both traditional and social media. Traditional media may include press releases issued by the author’s institution or coordinated by the print journal to maximize the impact and newsworthiness of an important scientific advance. These press releases can often lead to articles in leading newspapers or newsmagazines that refer to the original article if they are considered of interest to the general public. However, traditional media can also inadvertently or deliberately present an inaccurate or sensationalized version of the article’s conclusions, potentially not tempered by the study’s limitations. Media reports of peer-reviewed articles are not necessarily written in collaboration with the authors of the article, and even though quotations may be excerpted from press releases and other sources, conclusions can be misrepresented. If a layperson’s interpretation of a scientific finding is to be used for clinical practice, the validity of the conclusions presented must be verified against the original article itself.

Many scientists and clinicians are now keeping current with the latest evidence through social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, or individual blogs, where leading scientists, researchers, and clinicians can link to original articles and provide their own spin or commentary on the relative merits or shortcomings of the most recently published research. Other less reliable, but easily accessible, resources include crowd-sourced websites such as Wikipedia. However, the quality of the information presented on individual blogs or crowd-sourced sites depends significantly on the credentials of the individuals contributing to the website. Although the democratization of the medical literature has accelerated the dissemination of new research to both scientific audiences and to the public, it is still important for individual clinicians to understand how to approach the literature independently to separate the propaganda surrounding the latest research from the actual strengths and weaknesses of the study itself.