ABSTRACT
[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0287547.].
ABSTRACT
Beall's list is widely used to identify potentially predatory journals. With this study, we aim to investigate the impact of Beall's list on the perception of listed journals as well as on the publication and citation behavior of the scientific community. We performed comprehensive bibliometric analyses of data extracted from the ISSN database, PubMed, PubMed Central (PMC), Crossref, Scopus and Web of Science. Citation analysis was performed by data extracted from the Crossref Cited-by database. At the time of analysis, Beall's list consisted of 1,289 standalone journals and 1,162 publishers, which corresponds to 21,735 individual journals. Of these, 3,206 (38.8%) were located in the United States, 2,484 in India (30.0%), and 585 in United Kingdom (7.1%). The majority of journals were listed in the ISSN database (n = 8,266), Crossref (n = 5,155), PubMed (n = 1,139), Scopus (n = 570), DOAJ (n = 224), PMC (n = 135) or Web of Science (n = 50). The number of articles published by journals on Beall's list as well as on the DOAJ continuously increased from 2011 to 2017. In 2018, the number of articles published by journals on Beall's list decreased. Journals on Beall's list were more often cited when listed in Web of Science (CI 95% 5.5 to 21.5; OR = 10.7) and PMC (CI 95% 6.3 to 14.1; OR = 9.4). It seems that the importance of Beall's list for the scientific community is overestimated. In contrast, journals are more likely to be selected for publication or citation when indexed by commonly used and renowned databases. Thus, the providers of these databases must be aware of their impact and verify that good publication practice standards are being applied by the journals listed.
Subject(s)
Big Data , Periodicals as Topic , Bibliometrics , Databases, Factual , PerceptionABSTRACT
We prospectively performed a longitudinal analysis of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) from 149 plasma samples and CT scans in Stage III and IV metastatic melanoma patients (n = 20) treated with targeted agents or immunotherapy using two custom next-generation sequencing (NGS) Ion AmpliSeq™ HD panels including 60 and 81 amplicons in 18 genes, respectively. Concordance of matching cancer-associated mutations in tissue and plasma was 73.3%. Mutant allele frequency (MAF) levels showed a range from 0.04% to 28.7%, well detectable with NGS technologies utilizing single molecule tagging like the AmpliSeq™ HD workflow. Median followup time of the tissue and/or plasma positive cohort (n = 15) was 24.6 months and median progression-free survival (PFS) was 7.8 months. Higher MAF ≥ 1% at baseline was not significantly associated with a risk of progression (Odds Ratio = 0.15; p = 0.155). Although a trend could be seen, MAF levels did not differ significantly over time between patients with and without a PFS event (p = 0.745). Depending on the cell-free DNA amount, NGS achieved a sensitivity down to 0.1% MAF and allowed for parallel analysis of multiple mutations and previously unknown mutations. Our study indicates that NGS gene panels could be useful for monitoring disease burden during therapy with ctDNA in melanoma patients.
ABSTRACT
Treatment options in advanced melanoma have been subject to a major change over the last years. The discovery of the oncogenic point mutation BRAFV600E and subsequently developed BRAF inhibitors had a major impact on patient's survival. Further important mutations have been found in the NRAS gene, although not yet druggable, and others involve c-kit in acral and mucosal melanoma. Imatinib was shown to achieve high response rates in c-kit mutated melanoma. Despite good response rates in these targeted therapies and introduction of immunotherapy, there are still patients left, who develop resistance upon therapy or patients without the option of targeted therapy. Therefore it is necessary to identify further therapeutic options for this subset of patients. Several new mutations have been described so far that might be suitable for targeted therapy or useful as clinical biomarkers. Alterations in various receptor tyrosine kinases lead to constitutively activated downstream signaling and might be responsible for non-response to common therapies. In contrast, tyrosine kinase inhibitors such as sunitinib or nilotinib could be suitable for patients harboring those alterations. Additionally, chromosomal rearrangements have been described in many different cancer types, resulting in oncogenic fusion proteins that involve BRAF, ROS1, NTRK, ALK and others. These are an emerging therapeutic field, especially in spitzoid melanomas. Further mutations have been detected in the neurofibromin 1 and RAC1 gene, although the clinical relevance is still not fully revealed. Within this review we will summarize the current evidence and focus on possible further upcoming targets and therapeutic opportunities in BRAFwt/NRASwt/KITwt melanoma.
