Trends in pemphigus research over 15 years.

BACKGROUND: Although pemphigus is a rare autoimmune blistering disease, it attracts the attention of physicians of many disciplines. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to assess the number of articles on pemphigus that have been published over 15 years in dermatology vs. non-dermatology medical journals, and to evaluate the quality of available evidence. METHODS: PubMed was searched for articles on pemphigus published between 1 January 1993 to 31 December 2007 using the search word pemphigus. Articles were characterized by publication type and journal type per year. Regression analysis was used to determine the effect of year of publication on number of publications of each type. RESULTS: The search yielded 2032 publications on pemphigus during the evaluation period. Sixty-one per cent were published in dermatology journals. Overall, the number of publications increased linearly with time. Most of this increase was accounted for by publications in non-dermatology journals. There was an increase in clinical trials over the course of the study period. The number of certain publications with lower quality of evidence, mainly case reports and letters to the editor, increased significantly in the last few years. There was no increase in publications with high quality of evidence. CONCLUSIONS: The increase on data from non-dermatology disciplines is a welcome contribution. Nevertheless, high-quality evidence on pemphigus is still lacking. We trust that the current trend towards evidence-based dermatology will impact future research on this severe disease.