key: cord-0708781-lbmktall
authors: Putman, Michael S.; Ruderman, Eric; Niforatos, Joshua D.
title: Publication Rate and Journal Review Time of COVID-19 Related Research
date: 2020-08-31
journal: Mayo Clin Proc
DOI: 10.1016/j.mayocp.2020.08.017
sha: 4304662084fe92a0d5757896702bdf8141e3e0b3
doc_id: 708781
cord_uid: lbmktall

nan

The academic community has responded swiftly to the novel coronavirus 2019 pandemic. Anecdotally, academic researchers have noticed a reduction in the amount of time journals require to review COVID-19 manuscripts. In this letter we describe the growth of this literature and the review time of COVID-19 related manuscripts.

Bibliographic data were extracted from all articles in the dedicated COVID-19 research sections of the preprint databases medRxiv and bioRxiv (https://connect.medrxiv.org/relate/content/181) and the NCBI section LitCovid (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/research/coronavirus/). Bibliographic data were also extracted from all non-COVID-19 articles published by the journals listed in LitCovid. Articles were included if posted between November 1st, 2019 and May 26th, 2020. For published articles, the difference between the date of submission and the date of acceptance ("review time") was compared using the independent samples t-test. See supplemental appendix for detailed methodology. reporting errors have also occurred 2 and might be more frequent in an expedited process. Finally, the reduction in review time may in part be attributable to an abridged process of peer review.

The recent experience with hydroxychloroquine in COVID-19 may illustrate the consequences of expedited or inadequate peer review. Initially, a small cohort study with substantive methodologic flaws was accepted after one day of peer review. 3 Public acquisition, medication shortages, and widespread adoption in clinical practice followed. Subsequent large observational cohorts and randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have not verified these results. More recently, RCTs of hydroxychloroquine in COVID-19 halted enrollment after a study by Mehra et al suggested an association between hydroxychloroquine use and increased mortality. 4 Substantive concerns about the validity of these data could not be addressed, and the study has been retracted. 5

Our approach has limitations. The types of published articles could not be assessed and many journals did not list submission or acceptance dates in bibliographic metadata. However, our data highlight important threats to the validity of the evolving COVID-19 literature, which may be particularly acute in the current climate. While our response to this crisis should be swift, it must also be scientifically rigorous. 

Editorial Concern-Possible Reporting of the Same Patients With COVID-19 in Different Reports

Clarification of Mortality Rate and Data in Abstract, Results, and Table 2

Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin as a treatment of COVID-19: results of an open-label non-randomized clinical trial

Hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine with or without a macrolide for treatment of COVID-19: a multinational registry analysis. The Lancet