ArticleBMC cancer2025
Prevalence of medical writing in hematological malignancy review articles.
Article in BMC cancer, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Accountability or acknowledgment? Untangling authorship and medical writing support in scientific publishing.Perspectives in clinical researchArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundMedical writing services, initially developed to streamline manuscript preparation, have raised ethical concerns due to their association with industry influence and spin. While prevalent in oncology and malignant hematology clinical trials, medical writing involvement in review articles remains underexplored, particularly in the hematology literature. Furthermore, conflict of interests of the writers may also affect the content of review articles. This study investigates the prevalence, characteristics, and funding sources of medical writing in malignant hematology review articles and their relationship with the financial conflicts of interest (CoI) among authors.
methodsWe conducted a cross-sectional analysis of review articles published in the five-year period between January 2019 and December 2023 in the ten highest-rated hematology journals (by 2023 Journal Citation Report Impact Factor). Inclusion criteria encompassed narrative and systematic reviews, guidelines, and clinical advice articles, excluding studies focused solely on benign hematology or basic science.
resultsAmong 663 included reviews, medical writing involvement was disclosed in 5.7% of articles in which in no instance the medical writer was included as a co-author; with as high as 21% of review articles in a single journal having disclosed medical writing assistance. Medical writers were primarily industry-sponsored (89%). Reviews on plasma cell malignancies had the highest medical writing usage (11%). Direct CoIs were identified in 28% and 34% of first and last authors, respectively, rising to 71% in drug-specific reviews. Only one journal had explicit policies regulating medical writing in reviews.
conclusionsAlthough the prevalence of medical writing in malignant hematology review articles remains low, at least one journal had over 20% of review articles disclosing medical writer usage. Review articles about specific drugs are often written by authors with direct payments from the manufacturer of the drug in question.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.