Evolution and Innovations in Corneal Practice and Publishing
Year: 2022
Type: article
Abstract: Twenty-five years ago, if a patient walked into an ophthalmologist's office with a corneal disorder that needed a corneal transplant, in almost every circumstance, they would be offered a penetrating keratoplasty. Now, a patient with decompensated Fuchs endothelial dystrophy would be offered endothelial keratoplasty (Descemet stripping endothelial keratoplasty or Descemet membrane endothelial keratoplasty) or even Descemet stripping only. A patient with keratoconus who could not tolerate a specialty contact lens (which is becoming increasingly rare) could be offered a deep anterior lamellar keratoplasty. In addition, a patient with multiple prior graft failures could be a candidate for a Boston keratoprosthesis. These are just some of the many surgical advances and innovations that have come around in the last quarter century. Even in the office, medical management of corneal and anterior segment conditions has evolved, and like the surgical innovations, they have resulted in improved outcomes and faster recovery for our patients. Newer antibiotic therapies are available, and new technologies, such as high-resolution anterior segment optical coherence tomography, have allowed for the ability to distinguish different types of malignant conditions of the ocular surface. In addition, significantly improved contact lens technology has allowed for fewer ectatic corneas from needing keratoplasty. All these medical and surgical advances have been able to reach mainstream practice through publication in the peer-reviewed literature. However, as the corneal knowledge being disseminated in the peer-reviewed literature has been exploding over the past 25 years, it has also been necessary for the publishing industry to evolve. Nearly 10 years ago, when I served on the editorial board of another journal, I had the privilege of co-authoring an editorial with the editor-in-chief announcing that the journal had reached a “tipping point” and that accepted articles would begin appearing online ahead of print, allowing for papers to be available within a couple of months of acceptance.1 Now at some journals, papers are posted online with a few days of acceptance, and other journals have completely left print behind and moved to an entirely online-only presence. With the increased demand for venues to publish new research and clinical observations, new online-only journals are also appearing at a rapid rate. Since March, 1982, cornea specialists around the world have had the benefit of sharing experiences, innovations, and ideas in the form of scientific papers in the renowned journal, Cornea, sponsored by the Cornea Society (then known as the Castroveijo Society, which was founded in 1975). This Journal provided a leadership platform for the dissemination of knowledge that has become a backbone for driving our understanding of diseases of the cornea and influencing our clinical practices in the field. Under the outstanding leadership of the current and past editors-in-chief, the Journal has grown in international prominence, and its influence is truly felt worldwide. While Cornea has “kept up with the times,” and it posts accepted papers online ahead of print, like for many other journals, submissions far exceed the capacity of the Journal, and as such, the acceptance rate is around 25%. Separately, in recent years, there has been global debate on the merits of new open publishing models, mostly involving academic institutions, academic societies, funders of research, and publishers. Open access (OA) publications are now increasingly requested and/or mandated by international institutions as the fundamental principle is to provide direct, unrestricted, free-of-charge, and permanent access to articles. This is done to provide benefits to stakeholders in research publishing, including the researchers, funders, students, librarians, publishers, and the general public. This immediate accessibility accelerates dissemination of the most recent scientific, research, and medical evidence. Given the evolving publishing landscape and that Cornea has historically led and nurtured the field, I am pleased to present here the first issue of Cornea Open, the gold OA journal to complement Cornea. Cornea Open is also sponsored by the Cornea Society, and it will publish papers related to basic, translational, and clinical research (including case reports and techniques) that are not related to corneal transplantation and eye banking (which will be in the purview of another new title, Eye Banking and Corneal Transplantation). All papers will undergo the same rigorous peer review process that we all expect from the parent Cornea journal, and accepted papers will be published in quarterly online-only issues. The OA publication model will allow for immediate and worldwide distribution of your work on acceptance. In this first issue, in addition to our first published articles, we are including a large selection of the abstracts from the free paper sessions at the recent World Cornea Congress VIII that was held in Chicago, Illinois, from September 28 to 29, 2022. This important Cornea Society event brought together 1000 of the greatest minds in cornea from around the world to share knowledge, network, and reconnect. The abstracts published here represent some of the most cutting-edge research that is being conducted around the world in the field of cornea, and if you did not have a chance to attend the meeting, I hope that you will take this opportunity to catch up on these important works. I am honored to have the opportunity to work with the outstanding associate editors and editorial board members of Cornea Open to create this new venue for important discoveries in the field of cornea, and I pledge to uphold the same high standards for publishing quality studies that advance our knowledge in the field, as does Cornea. I am confident that this new venue will serve our readership well, as we will be able to quickly disseminate more of the high-quality work that you allow us the privilege of reviewing.
Source: Cornea Open
Author: Bennie H. Jeng
Institution: University of Pennsylvania
Language: English
Subfield: History and Philosophy of Science
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4313314901