The 2020 Journal Citation Reports (JCR) have just been released and we are happy to announce that the new impact factor (IF) of Polish Archives of Internal Medicine (Pol Arch Intern Med) has reached its highest value ever; our current IF is 3.277. Pol Arch Intern Med managed to hold its position and is ranked in the highest tertile in the world in the category of “Medicine, General & Internal” journals.1 This achievement is a joint effort and success of the authors, reviewers, Editorial Board, and Editorial Staff. We express our gratitude to all who contributed to our growing standing among biomedical journals, in particular, authors who submitted their high-quality studies to our journal.

Looking ahead, we should be aware of significant changes to the method of journal impact factor (IF) calculation, introduced by Clarivate this year.

The JCR was published for the first time in 1975 as part of the Social Sciences Citation Index. Impact factor was always a measure of the frequency with which the “average article” in a journal has been cited in a particular period, typically the preceding year. Due to the introduction of “Early Access” articles, citations of this format were not consistently incorporated in the classic approach to the assessment of IF, since citations were counted only to articles finally published in the journal. In the contemporary science, scientific content should be provided as early as possible—the advantages of such an approach are clearly seen now, during the COVID-19 pandemic.2 As there were good reasons to count citations to such articles, Clarivate, starting with content indexed in 2020, now includes in the JCR items according to their earliest availability. As a result, the transition to the new calculation mode initially inflated IFs of numerous journals, as there was “Early Access” contribution only to the 2020 journal IF numerator, not to the denominator, as shown below:

2020 Impact Factor =

Citations with Early Access year 2020 to papers with Issue Cover year 2018 or 2019

Citable items with Issue Cover year 2018 or 2019

However, it is important to understand the meaning of “Early Access” for Clarivate, which is the version of record that is made available early and that will not change, aside from the final assignment in a volume / issue. Only texts in this form will be indexed in the Web of Science.3 Many leading medical journals, including Pol Arch Intern Med, had their own different online publication policies that included immediate publication of the accepted, peer-reviewed versions of the articles in just a few days. The papers received their DOIs and were available in the Medline and the PubMed. Such policy was adapted for many Elsevier titles (including The Lancet), university presses (Oxford, Cambridge), together with publications from prominent societies, such as the American Heart Association. Such online content in most cases was not considered and indexed as “Early Access” in the Web of Science and in the JCR.

Following the current changes introduced by Clarivate, we are going to adapt our online publication policy. This will include preparing of the “Early Access” version of the article to be indexed in the Web of Science with final language editing, typesetting, layout, etc. That will slightly prolong the time from the paper’s acceptance to its online publication. However, in Pol Arch Intern Med, together with its dedicated publisher, Medycyna Praktyczna and highly experienced staff (Managing Editor, Katarzyna Toffel; Manuscript Editors, Małgorzata Kurowska and Gabriela Lipień; and DTP specialist, Tomasz Śmigla, among others) we will do our best to publish the articles as quickly as possible.

The contribution to the 2020 IF of Pol Arch Intern Med was achieved by publishing various original studies and reviews that covered diverse topics across the field of internal medicine. The most highly cited articles in 2020 that were published in the years 2018 to 2019 are listed in Table 1. We also wish to acknowledge the excellent work of our reviewers. Without their commitment and critical attitude, the selection of best articles would not have been possible. The reviewers who were most active in 2020 are listed in Table 2.

Table 1. Most cited papers from 2018 and 2019 contributing to journal impact factor 2020 based on Web of Science Core Collection, Clarivate

No.

Paper

Citation count in 2020

1

Salamon D, Malecki MT, Gosiewski T, et al. Characteristics of gut microbiota in adult patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes based on next-generation sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene fragment. Pol Arch Intern Med. 2018; 128: 336-343.

13

2

Tripodi A, Braham S, Scimeca B, et al. How and when to measure anticoagulant effects of direct oral anticoagulants? Practical issues. Pol Arch Intern Med. 2018; 128: 379-385.

13

3

Skrypnik D, Bogdanski P, Zawiejska A, Wender-Ozegowska E. Role of gestational weight gain, gestational diabetes, breastfeeding, and hypertension in mother-to-child obesity transmission. Pol Arch Intern Med. 2019; 129: 267-275.

11

4

Miethe S, Guarino M, Alhamdan F, et al. Effects of obesity on asthma: immunometabolic links. Pol Arch Intern Med. 2018; 128: 469-477.

8

5

Fraczek P, Krzysztofik M, Stanisz A, Undas A. Clinical outcomes and plasma clot permeability and lysability in patients with venous thromboembolism on rivaroxaban: a cohort study. Pol Arch Intern Med. 2019; 129: 377-385.

8

6

Banescu C, Iancu M, Tripon F, et al. Presence of copy number aberration and clinical prognostic factors in patients with acute myeloid leukemia: an analysis of effect modification. Pol Arch Intern Med. 2019; 129: 898-906.

7

7

Szczeklik K, Krzysciak W, Cibor D, et al. Markers of lipid peroxidation and antioxidant status in the serum and saliva of patients with active Crohn disease. Pol Arch Intern Med. 2018; 128: 362-370.

7

8

Banasiak W, Zymlinski R, Undas A. Optimal management of cancer patients with acute coronary syndrome. Pol Arch Intern Med. 2018; 128: 244-253.

7

Table 2. Most active reviewers in 2020 based on Editorial Manager

Daniel P. Potaczek

Artur Dziewierz

Piotr Jankowski

Tomasz Stompór

Joanna E. Drozd-Sokołowska

Jolanta Małyszko

Paweł Rostoff

Mateusz Siedliński

Maciej Sterliński

Małgorzata Szczerbo-Trojanowska

Andrzej Ząbek

We would have never been able to continuously increase the journal’s position without the authors whose citations contributed significantly to our IF (Table 3). The Editors continuously encourage you all to cite Pol Arch Intern Med wherever feasible!

Table 3. Authors with greatest contribution to the 2020 journal impact factor based on Web of Science Core Collection, Clarivate

Anetta Undas

Mariusz Gąsior

Joanna Natorska

Krzysztof Bartuś

Katarzyna Krzanowska

Radosław Litwinowicz

Krzysztof Plens

Michał Ząbczyk

Finally, we invite you to submit your papers to Pol Arch Intern Med. For high-quality research, we always guarantee a quick peer review process (current average time from submission to the fist decision is 2 days and from submission to first reviews, 22 days) and dissemination of research findings.

Our aim is to enhance the standing of Pol Arch Intern Med and our current estimations indicate that the 2021 IF will exceed the present value, which confirms that the potential of internal medicine, especially in Poland, in terms of clinical science increases and our aspirations for next years will continue to grow.