| | The Outcome of Manuscripts Submitted to the American Journal of Ophthalmology Between 2002 and 2003Accepted 5 December 2006. published online 16 January 2007.
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Peers Review, Editors Decide, and Then, What?
, 06 February 2007
Andrew P. Schachat
American Journal of Ophthalmology
April 2007 (Vol. 143, Issue 4, Pages 677-678)
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PurposeTo investigate the outcome of manuscripts submitted to the American Journal of Ophthalmology (AJO) between July 23, 2002 and December 31, 2003. DesignObservational series. MethodsData were collected on all Full-Length Articles and Brief Reports submitted to the AJO. Data were recorded for rejected or withdrawn manuscripts about the date of submission and decision, category of decision, type of article, manuscript region of origin, alternate journal of manuscript, date of publication, and impact factor and immediacy index of the subsequent journal. Corresponding data were collected from the manuscripts accepted over the same period. The Advanced PubMed online database was searched to determine if the rejected or withdrawn manuscripts were published elsewhere. The impact factor and the immediacy index of the journal of the subsequent journal was then recorded and compared with those of the AJO, using the year 2004 for comparison. ResultsOf 2,026 manuscripts submitted, 1,444 were rejected by the AJO or withdrawn by the authors and 50% of these were subsequently published elsewhere in a PubMed listed journal. The rejected or withdrawn articles were typically published in lower impact journals, most commonly in general ophthalmology journals in the author’s region or in subspecialty journals, although several were published in higher impact journals. The 727 articles were published in 94 different journals and usually with an extended delay. ConclusionsRejection of a manuscript by the AJO does not preclude publication, but rejected manuscripts are published more often in journals that serve a smaller readership and are cited less frequently, although exceptions exist. The accepted process for reviewing scientific manuscripts before dissemination is peer-review by volunteer experts in the field of interest. The issue of the effectiveness, objectivity, fairness, and value of the editorial peer-review process has been much debated; publishers usually bear the cost of this expensive process. The acceptance of the value of the process, as evaluated by authors, has been modest, and at odds with the opinion of editors.1 It is an imperfect process, but better than current alternatives. The peer-review process is free to the authors, demands a large time commitment from the reviewers, and requires the maintenance of a professional editorial staff to monitor the process and make final decisions, all with the aim of reporting the best possible science to the reader/public. Journal impact factor and circulation are important considerations to authors and academic promotion committees, albeit with many precautions raised in the literature about flaws in the impact factor.2, 3 This is an era of proliferating journals in ophthalmology. There are 44 journals in ophthalmology presently indexed by the Institute for Scientific Information in 2005 and therefore have Journal Citation Reports provided each year.4 There are 152 journals in ophthalmology listed in the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed database (the online version of MEDLINE), although not all of the journals are still active. Some of these listings are online-only journals, a movement that has a strong impetus at this time. Therefore, it can be anticipated that any manuscript might find a home in an ophthalmology journal or in another discipline with some association to ophthalmology or medicine. The authors evaluated the outcome of manuscripts submitted to the American Journal of Ophthalmology (AJO) in the initial months of editorship of the author (T.J.L.); these dates also correlate with the initiation of the electronic submission and review process by the AJO. Specific data and emphasis was devoted to the manuscripts that were rejected by, or withdrawn from, the AJO. The study seeks to clarify the final resting place of these manuscripts in an effort to determine if they found a more prominent home (such as the impact factor) and to estimate the amount of effort expended by peer-review journals as well as the behavior of its authors in response to rejection or a harsh revision request. Methods  Data Collection Only articles submitted to the AJO under the category of Full-Length Articles or Brief Reports were included in this study; Perspectives, Editorials, and Correspondence were not included. The following information was collected regarding 1,444 manuscripts that were submitted to the AJO between July 23, 2002, and December 31, 2003, and subsequently rejected or withdrawn by the authors: date of submission, date of decision, status of manuscript (rejected with review (RWR), rejected without review (RWOR), withdrawn, later accepted by the AJO), type of article, region of origin of manuscript, final journal of manuscript, date of publication, and impact factor and immediacy index of the subsequent journal. For these articles, we also recorded the primary author, corresponding author, title, date of submission, date of rejection or date of last correspondence regarding a withdrawn manuscript, and article type (Full-Length Article or Brief Report). In addition, for the 582 manuscripts accepted by the AJO that were submitted over the same time period, the following information was collected: date of submission, date of acceptance, and region of origin. The date of last known status of rejected or withdrawn manuscripts was considered April 15, 2006. We chose a final date of April 15, 2006, to provide sufficient opportunity (at least 27.5 months) for the rejected or withdrawn articles to be published elsewhere. To check for subsequent publication, we used the first author’s name or the corresponding author’s name and keywords in the title to search the Advanced PubMed online database (National Center for Biotechnology Information, Bethesda, Maryland, USA). If an article was not found using this strategy, we searched PubMed again for all articles published by the first or corresponding author. The authors then reviewed the abstract and the article to determine, by consensus, if the contents were similar or the same as the AJO submission. The impact factor is defined by the Thompson Institute for Scientific Information as the number of times a journal was cited within the previous two years divided by the total number of articles published by the journal during the previous two years.4, 5 The immediacy index is defined as the number of times a journal was cited within the year of publication divided by the total number of articles published by the journal in that year.4 The comparison year of 2004 was chosen for recording the impact factor and immediacy index of the journal in which a rejected or withdrawn article appeared. A comparison was made with the AJO impact factor and immediacy index at that same time. The impact factor for the AJO in the year 2004 was 2.33 and the immediacy index was 0.286; in 2004, the impact factor of Full-Length Articles was 3.2 vs 1.2 for Brief Reports, although these latter numbers were not used in the comparisons within this manuscript. If a subsequent journal did not have an impact factor according to Thompson Institute for Scientific Information, then it was recorded as zero. Statistical Analysis Numerical data were summarized with the sample median, quartiles, minimum, and maximum. The Kendall tau was used to investigate associations between numerical variables. The Wilcoxon rank sum test and the Kruskal-Wallis rank sum test were used to investigate differences in impact factor between groups. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to estimate the distribution of all time-to-event outcomes. Results There were 2,026 manuscripts submitted to the AJO between July 23, 2002 and December 31, 2003, that were in the category of a Full-Length Article or a Brief Report. Of these 2,026 manuscripts, 1,444 (71%) were rejected or were withdrawn after a revision request. Table 1 compares the region of origin of accepted, rejected, or withdrawn manuscripts and reflects the international audience of the AJO. Submissions from the United States, Asia, and Europe dominated the list of accepted, rejected, and withdrawn manuscripts. | | |  | Region of Origin | No. (%) of Manuscripts Accepted (n = 582) | No. (%) of Manuscripts Rejected or Withdrawn (n = 1,444) | |
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| United States | 302 (52%) | 477(33%) | | | Asia | 126(22%) | 473(33%) | | | Europe | 95(16%) | 334(23%) | | | Oceania | 19(3%) | 31(2%) | | | Middle East | 17(3%) | 60(4%) | | | North America (non-US) | 11(2%) | 22(2%) | | | South America | 10(2%) | 41(3%) | | | Africa | 1(<1%) | 6(<1%) | | | Unknown | 1(<1%) | 0(0%) | | | | |
Table 2 shows the characteristics of the 1,444 rejected or withdrawn manuscripts. Of these, 727 (50%) manuscripts were subsequently published elsewhere in a PubMed listed journal, with 11 in the AJO (some after rebuttal and a few with resubmission unrecognized by the AJO). Fifty-five percent of those published subsequently were Brief Reports when originally submitted to the AJO and 45% were Full-Length Articles when originally submitted to the AJO. The data collected did not record the specific reporting format (full-length report, short report, correspondence, or photo image) of the subsequent publication. There were 100 manuscripts returned to authors with a request for significant revisions and the authors either then withdrew the manuscript or failed to reply to the AJO’s queries for an update; 41% were subsequently published in a PubMed listed journal. Eighty-nine percent (645) of the rejected or withdrawn articles were published in lower impact journals, with the remaining 82 were published in higher impact journals. The median impact factor was 1.3 (range, 0 to 3.6). Some were published within a year of rejection by the AJO, although most were published after a considerable delay. | | | | Variable | Overall (n = 1,444) | Withdrawn Articles (n = 100) | RWR Articles (n = 1,304) | RWOR Articles (n = 40) | |
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| Article type | | | | | | | Full-length article | 655(45%) | 73(73%) | 558(43%) | 24(60%) | | | Brief report | 789(55%) | 27(27%) | 746(57%) | 16(40%) | | | Origin | | | | | | | United States | 477(33%) | 51(51%) | 417(32%) | 9(23%) | | | Asia | 473(33%) | 16(16%) | 446(34%) | 11(28%) | | | Europe | 334(23%) | 24(24%) | 295(23%) | 15(38%) | | | Middle East | 60(4%) | 0(0%) | 57(4%) | 3(8%) | | | South America | 41(3%) | 3(3%) | 36(3%) | 2(5%) | | | Oceania | 31(2%) | 4(4%) | 27(2%) | 0(0%) | | | North America(non-US) | 22(2%) | 2(2%) | 20(2%) | 0(0%) | | | Africa | 6(<1%) | 0(0%) | 6(<1%) | 0(0%) | | | Time from rejection or withdrawal to publication | | | | | | | Less than 1 year | 238(32%) | 18(39%) | 216(31%) | 4(33%) | | | 1–2 years | 415(55%) | 23(50%) | 385(56%) | 7(58%) | | | 2–3 years | 89(12%) | 5(11%) | 83(12%) | 1(8%) | | | 3–4 years | 6(1%) | 0(0%) | 6(1%) | 0(0%) | | | Alternate publication | 727(50%) | 41(41%) | 674(52%) | 12(30%) | | | Published in American Journal of Ophthalmology (usually after rebuttal) | 11(1%) | 0(0%) | 11(1%) | 0(0%) | | | Impact factor of published journal | 1.3(0.7–1.9) | 1.5(0.7–2.0) | 1.2(0.7–1.9) | 1.6(1.2–2.2) | | | | |
Table 3 summarizes the type of alternate journals chosen for subsequent submission. The 727 articles were published in 94 different journals. Many of the submissions from outside the United States were subsequently published in general ophthalmology journals in the same region as the authors. Subspecialty journals in the United States were the next most common type of journal for publication. Ten percent were published in general ophthalmology journals in the United States. There are no data on the number of attempts at submission, because an author questionnaire was not employed. | | | | Alternate Journals | Overall (n = 727) | Withdrawn Articles (n = 41) | RWR Articles (n = 674) | RWOR Articles (n = 12) | |
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| General ophthalmology journal (non-US) | 307(42%) | 19(46%) | 285(42%) | 3(25%) | | | Subspecialty ophthalmology journal (United States) | 239(33%) | 9(22%) | 226(34%) | 4(33%) | | | General ophthalmology journal (United States) | 70(10%) | 9(22%) | 58(9%) | 3(25%) | | | Ophthalmology research journal (United States) | 53(7%) | 0(0%) | 52(8%) | 1(8%) | | | Medical journal (United States) | 25(3%) | 4(10%) | 21(3%) | 0(0%) | | | Medical journal (non-US) | 11(2%) | 0(0%) | 11(2%) | 0(0%) | | | Optometry journal (United States) | 8(1%) | 0(0%) | 7(1%) | 1(8%) | | | Non-ophthalmology research journal (United States) | 7(1%) | 0(0%) | 7(1%) | 0(0%) | | | Non-ophthalmology research journal (non-US) | 5(1%) | 0(0%) | 5(1%) | 0(0%) | | | Non-medical journal | 2(<1%) | 0(0%) | 2(<1%) | 0(0%) | | | | |
Table 4 summarizes various time periods from the initial submission of articles to publication. The median interval between submission and decision at the AJO for rejected or withdrawn articles was 32 days with some outliers, usually related to late completion by the volunteer peer- reviewers. The median time to subsequent publication in alternate journals was 453 days compared with a median time from AJO acceptance to print publication of 171 days. The median interval between submission and final acceptance at the AJO was 84 days, related to the manuscript revision requests and to delay in author resubmission. | | | | Variable | Summary | |
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| Rejected by AJO | | | Days from submission to withdrawal/rejection (n = 1,444) | 32(0,20,53,703) | | | Days from submission to rejection without review (n = 12) | 5(1,2,7,279) | | | Days from submission to rejection with review (n = 674) | 33(1,22,53,703) | | | Days from submission to withdrawal (n = 100) | 44(0,6,84,686) | | | Days from withdrawal/rejection to alternate publication (n = 727) | 453(12,337,607,1168) | | | Days from submission to alternate publication (n = 727) | 495(48,374,646,1216) | | | Accepted by AJO | | | Days from submission to acceptance | 84(1,47,128,758) | | | Days from acceptance to publication | 171(1,151,186,925) | | | Days from submission to publication | 254(118,221,298,999) | | | | |
Figure 1 demonstrates the impact factor of the alternate publication and time from withdrawal or rejection from the AJO to publication showing evidence of just a slight lowering of the impact factor of the subsequent journal as the time increased from the original submission to the AJO. Figure 2 demonstrates the impact factor of the alternate journal publication according to region of origin. There is evidence of a difference in impact factor depending on the region of origin of the manuscript (P = .027). Figure 3 shows the impact factor of the alternate publication according to article type, compared with the overall impact factor for the AJO in 2004 of 2.33. There is evidence of a higher impact factor for journals publishing Full-Length Articles (P < .001), as might be anticipated, with a median of 1.5 compared with 1.2 for journals publishing Brief Reports. Figure 4 demonstrates the impact factor and immediacy index for the alternate journal publication. The single line shows the overall impact factor of the AJO in 2004 of 2.33. There is strong evidence of a high positive correlation between these two measures (P < .001, Tau = 0.85), demonstrating that high-impact articles tend to be noticed and subsequently cited rather quickly. Figure 5 displays in graphic format the outcome of all manuscripts submitted to the AJO. During this period, 582 of 2,026 (29%) manuscripts were accepted and 1,444 of 2,026 (71%) were rejected or were withdrawn by the authors after revision request; 727 of 1,444 (50%) of the rejected or withdrawn manuscripts were subsequently published elsewhere. Although manuscripts accepted by the AJO had a 90% range of 195 to 415 days between submission and print publication, those that were subsequently published in other journals were considerably delayed with a 90% range from 274 to 1,255 days. Discussion Because at least 50% of manuscripts that were rejected or withdrawn were subsequently published elsewhere, this highlights the extensive peer-review effort of the AJO and of the previous or subsequent journals. This study did not undertake a review of each manuscript that was subsequently published elsewhere to determine if any of the suggested revision or rejection comments were followed, although, admittedly, that would have made this article even more informative. There were 100 manuscripts for which the AJO requested major revisions that were never returned, possibly in favor of seeking publication in an alternate journal. The limited print space in the AJO, coupled with high submission numbers, requires a high rejection rate. During these initial months of the new Editor-in-Chief, more manuscripts were actually accepted than could be accommodated for timely print publication; the Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Board subsequently adjusted their criteria for acceptance (unpublished data by the author). The subsequent articles were published in 94 different journals, scattered internationally. Because only PubMed-indexed journals were searched, there are probably many more published in non–PubMed-indexed journals or perhaps online-only journals. PubMed is actually quite a limited database of published articles in medicine. Only 5,968 (approximately 25% of all medical journals) are listed in PubMed. In a 1994 article, only 14 of 108 articles rejected from a Dutch Medical journal were traced to MEDLINE within two years, whereas a questionnaire to the authors revealed that 49% of the articles had been published in journals not covered by MEDLINE.6 In addition, there is the possibility that further articles may have been published in other journals after our cut-off date of April 15, 2006. The articles rejected by, or withdrawn from, the AJO usually appeared in journals with a lower impact factor and a lower immediacy index, but 11% were published in higher impact journals. Certainly many authors adhere to the opinion that the AJO misjudged their manuscript in the first place; alternatively, it is possible that the other journals may have failed to detect some of the deficiencies. The best scenario would be that the authors significantly improved their manuscripts by the time of the alternate submission. In fact, many manuscripts were acceptable, but were simply competing against other manuscripts for the limited print space within the AJO. Similar analyses regarding the outcome of rejected manuscripts have been performed in other medical disciplines. In evaluating manuscripts submitted in 1986 to the American Journal of Radiology, 64% of all 254 rejected manuscripts were subsequently published within 4.5 years, with 82% of all rejected Full-Length Articles ultimately appearing in a subsequent publication.7 Those articles were published in 30 different radiologic and 27 different nonradiologic journals. Most of the subsequent journals had a lower impact factor and circulation compared with the American Journal of Radiology. In a random sample of the manuscripts submitted to the Annals of Internal Medicine in 1993 and 1994, 69% of 350 rejected manuscripts were subsequently published elsewhere after an average of 18 months, mostly in specialty journals and in journals with an impact factor one-third of that of the Annals of Internal Medicine.8 That study found that the longer a manuscript’s time to publication, the lower the impact factor and immediacy index of the journal that published it; our present study revealed the same. Kaiser Foundation Research Institute found that 77% of manuscripts submitted by their researchers between 1980 and 1982 were eventually published; 30% were accepted after the first submission, 41% after the second, 33% after the third, and 27% after the fourth; and the remainder took even more attempts.9 The mean publication lag time was 326 days for acceptance of first submissions, 402 days for second submissions, 512 days for third submissions, and 616 days for fourth submissions. Of 405 manuscripts rejected by Occupational Environmental Medicine in a specified period,10 54% were ultimately traced in 72 different journals within two years; only 10% were published in a journal with a higher impact factor. A lower publication rate of 38% was reported for articles rejected by the American Journal of Surgery,11 perhaps because many were case reports. Others have further investigated the issue with mailed questionnaires to authors asking about future publication after rejection, revealing high estimates of rate of publication but with only an approximate 50% response rate.12, 13 Peer-review, as practiced by the AJO and other journals, is an art that attempts to identify weaknesses in hypothesis, arguments, research methods, interpretation of results, and significance of the results. Authors, reviewers, and editors in effect challenge each other in an attempt to produce the best science. The resources expended in this process are enormous with rather extensive communications among all parties involved. Attempts to make peer-review a more precise tool have been limited by lack of a validated instrument to assess the quality of a peer-review.14 Although editors are overall satisfied with the peer-review process (and in fact have no good alternative, at least for small journals), studies have shown that author satisfaction with peer-review is modest and, not surprisingly, authors of rejected manuscripts were dissatisfied even more, especially with the time to decision and the communication from the Editor.1, 15 Author satisfaction was associated with acceptance, but not with review quality. Although editors rate the quality of reviews as equal between accepted and rejected manuscripts, the authors preferred only the accepted reviews.1 Our study did not query the authors about their perception of the AJO process, although occasional personal comments to the AJO suggest that some authors of rejected manuscripts feel that the process is quite arbitrary. Although the present study placed heavy emphasis on the impact factor and immediacy index of the journals that published the manuscripts, there are severe limitations of these measures as rating systems.5, 16 Impact factor is the most recognized term used and also perhaps a misnamed, misleading, and misused measure derived from the citation curve of a journal.5, 17, 18, 19 The interested reader is directed to numerous articles that debate the impact factor and its usage, usually critical of the assumed objective nature of the number.5, 17, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 However, other alternatives to this objective measure have not emerged. Impact factors depend on the subject area and the size and type of the journal, fluctuate from year to year, and are not necessarily reflections of quality. A gradual increase in the impact factor of scientific journals, including ophthalmology journals, is occurring and is not solely explained by the increase in the number of journals and articles indexed by the relevant Institute for Scientific Information database from which the calculations of the impact factor are derived.19 It might be explained by the increase in the mean number of references per published article, the relative frequency of publication of review articles vs original research articles (review articles are cited more frequently), as well as the easy availability of full text of articles on the Internet.19 More central to the problem of using an impact factor is that a high citation count for an article is not necessarily a sign of quality or approval of the results or interpretation of a study, as citations may be critical of an article or contradict an article.32 Controversies are most common with highly cited nonrandomized studies, but even the most highly cited randomized trials may be challenged and refuted over time.33 Moreover, authors are frequently unaware of the impact factor measure (although advertisers and promotion committees are aware) and rate journal prestige, prior journal publication topics, and readership as the most important factors for initial manuscript submissions.34 If rejected by their first choice, more pragmatic variables, such as likelihood of acceptance, gain importance in consideration by the authors. Authors do not appear to believe or are not concerned that their manuscripts benefit substantially from review.34 As part of the open access movement, the San Francisco–based nonprofit Public Library of Science has recently launched its first open peer-reviewed journal called PLoS ONE, in which, unlike articles in other PLoS journals that undergo rigorous peer-review before published online, the manuscripts in PLoS ONE are posted for the world to dissect after an editor gives them a cursory look,35 somewhat similar to the process of Wikipedia.36 Our study has several other limitations. Although the AJO requests that authors reveal, at the time of submission, if their manuscript has been previously rejected by another journal and to indicate how they have improved the manuscript, the AJO does not police this query and therefore some of the manuscripts that we rejected might have been rejected by a prior journal as well; in several instances, we know this as a fact. Certainly the AJO has both accepted and rejected manuscripts that have been rejected by prior journals, but we do not have the precise data to evaluate. Our data search missed articles that were published in journals not available in PubMed or MEDLINE, such as local journals, or published in online-only journals that are not indexed at PubMed. Some journals did not have impact factors recorded in the Institute for Scientific Information, yet are cited so that the impact factor that was used (zero) is not inclusive or totally accurate. We do not know if authors used reviewers’ comments from the AJO to revise their manuscripts before resubmission to another journal; these contributions may have helped authors improve their manuscripts and increase their chances of subsequent publication. Alternatively, we realize that authors might not even have considered the comments and simply resubmitted. It is somewhat disconcerting that many authors were offered the opportunity to revise (with tentative acceptance suggested) but chose to submit elsewhere; this expended resources for the AJO as well as the other journals. Authors should consider the comments from the editors and the referees as specific guides to improving the manuscript and, in some instances, to perhaps finding a more suitable journal. If the review reveals a flawed methodology or the results appear unreliable, then further publication should probably not be attempted. The authors, however, have their own opinion about their work. The results of the present study and the other studies in the literature confirm that rejection of a manuscript by a peer-reviewed journal by no means precludes publication. The editors, reviewers, publishers, and certainly the authors are well aware of the significant investment of resources in time, effort, and money that is expended with each study and each manuscript preparation. 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34. 34Frank E. Authors’ criteria for selecting journals. JAMA. 1994;272:163–164. MEDLINE 35. 35We want to publish your work. PLoS ONE Guidelines for Commenting. Available online at: http://www.plosone.org/static/commentGuidelines.action#annotation. Accessed Date: January 16, 2007. 36. 36Wikipedia: the free encyclopedia. Available online at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page. Accessed Date: December 3, 2006.  Thomas J. Liesegang, MD, received his medical degree from New York University, New York, New York, and completed a medical internship at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, followed by a residency at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, Miami, Florida. He then went on to complete a fellowship in external ocular disease and corneal surgery at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. Dr Liesegang has taught and published extensively in the areas of corneal and external eye disease, with over 200 publications. More recently he has published on Editorship and ethical issues in publishing. In addition to serving as the Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Ophthalmology, he also serves as the Editor of the Transactions of the American Ophthalmological Society. He was previously the Abstract Editor of the AJO. He serves on the International Council of Ophthalmology’s Task Force on Ophthalmology Continuing Education and on the Board of Directors of the Pan American Association of Ophthalmologists. Dr Liesegang has served as the American Academy of Ophthalmology’s Senior Secretary for Clinical Education since 2001. Among other Academy positions Dr Liesegang has held are: Secretary for Instruction from 1995 to 2000; Associate Secretary of the Ophthalmic Knowledge Assessment Program committee from 1991 to 1995; a member of the Preferred Practice Pattern committee; and a number of Task Forces and Liaison committees. Dr Liesegang currently serves as Chair of the AAO’s Ophthalmic Clinical Education Committee, Chair of the CME committee, and as a member of the EyeNet Advisory Board and the Committee on Aging. Dr Liesegang has practiced at the Mayo Clinic for 29 years, first in Rochester, Minnesota and later in Jacksonville, Florida, where he is the Louis and Evelyn Krueger Professor in the Department of Ophthalmology. a Department of Ophthalmology, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Jacksonville, Florida b Biostatistical Unit, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Jacksonville, Florida.  Inquiries to Thomas J. Liesegang, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, 4500 San Pablo Road, Jacksonville, FL 32224
See accompanying Editorial on page 677. The authors indicate no financial support or financial conflict of interest. Statistical analyses were performed by Michael G. Heckman, MS, Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, Florida. PII: S0002-9394(06)01412-7 doi:10.1016/j.ajo.2006.12.004 © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. | |
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