Abstract 3363: Mapping cancer: Employing geographic information systems (GIS) to explore co-authorship networks
Authors: Gallagher Monica A. , Warner Jeremy L. 
Published: August 2019

Introduction: The systemic treatment of cancer has evolved over the past 70 years through incremental knowledge gained via clinical trials (CTs). As a result of the efforts of large numbers of individuals and institutions, prognosis has improved markedly for many cancer types. Many CTs are organized through cooperative group structures, and increasingly through pharmaceutical industry or investigator-initiated mechanisms. One means to understand the complex organizational processes involved is through analysis of the geospatial relationships of cancer researchers. Here, we examine the co-authorship networks formed as a result of publication of CT results.

Methods: We utilized the knowledge embodied in HemOnc.org, which contains a large number of references to randomized CTs, as well as to prospective non-randomized CTs with practice-changing implications. Author names from HemOnc.org’s references were merged and normalized to MEDLINE names, when available. Author affiliation information was programmatically extracted from MEDLINE; these data were highly variable and required extensive post-processing. We then used the ggmap package in R to obtain geographic coordinates from the Data Science Toolkit API. As a pilot, we mapped the geolocations of nine Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC)-affiliated authors and their co-authors, and describe some characteristics of this subgroup of the larger network.

Results: Our dataset consisted of 4,105 publications with 24,976 authors (median 14 authors/pub., interquartile range [IQR] 10-19). Affiliation could be determined for 24,934 of 61,681 author entries (40.4%). The VICC subset of nine authors had 658 geolocatable co-authors (individual range 34-155). These co-authors were geolocated to 200 cities in 28 countries; the most common co-affiliates were Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York (MSKCC), Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, MA (DFCI), and Bristol-Myers Squibb in Princeton, NJ (BMS). The median co-author distance from Nashville, TN was 1332 km (IQR 1047-6745 km).

Conclusion: This pilot work is the first, to our knowledge, to use geolocation to describe the relationships of cancer clinical trialists. Given that VICC is a member of the ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group, it is unsurprising that the most common co-affiliates are also ECOG-ACRIN sites (MSKCC, DFCI). VICC had a large role in the nivolumab trials, explaining the BMS connection. While this analysis reveals a dense geospatial network, it also indicates opportunities for underrepresented areas; e.g., only one co-author is from South America and there are none from Africa or the Indian subcontinent. In summary, this pilot work demonstrates the feasibility of geolocating authors of pivotal CTs in cancer. Future work will include imputation of missing affiliations, geospatial network analysis, and examination of author impact as a function of time and affiliation.

Citation Format: Monica A. Gallagher, Jeremy L. Warner. Mapping cancer: Employing geographic information systems (GIS) to explore co-authorship networks [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2019; 2019 Mar 29-Apr 3; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2019;79(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 3363.