New initiatives for Neuro-Oncology Practice—building on the success of the first year

It has been one year since the launch of Neuro-Oncology Practice and its success is attributed to the dedication of the editorial board members, the incredible support from authors willing to contribute high-quality original work and relevant review articles, and the enthusiasm of the readership. In addition, the editorial staff at Oxford University Press has been invaluable in the timely production of the issues. The journal will continue to focus on practical issues for providers, and I am excited to announce some special features that will be introduced in 2015. The first of these will be series of articles focused on the design, conduct and interpretation of quality-of-life (QoL) research. QoL endpoints are being included in more studies than ever before, and it is essential to be aware of the special challenges in analyzing this type of data. In this issue, Linda Dirven, Terri Armstrong, and Martin Taphoorn present a valuable introductory overview of Clinical Outcomes Assessments in neuro-oncology research and ask important questions about how they can be combined with standard measures of survival and progression. This sets the stage for the topics that will be highlighted in future reviews. Other special features planned for the coming year include updated multidisciplinary case reviews (edited by Derek Johnson) and a series on biostatistics for the practicing clinician (edited by Annette Molinaro). These articles will hopefully be a great resource for the neuro-oncology community. PubMed citations of manuscripts are an important metric for academic advancement and many authors and potential contributors have inquired about the timeline for citation indexing in Medline/PubMed. Because it is a brand new journal, Neuro-Oncology Practice does not yet have a sufficient number of issues published to be assessed for indexing. In the next year this will no longer be the case, and it will be submitted for assessment. If it is accepted, all articles will be retroactively indexed. In the meantime, the journal is fully indexed by Google/Google Scholar and articles published in the journal are easily found. It is interesting to note that even for journals that are indexed by Medline, Google and GoogleScholar drive far more online usage – up to 50–60% of online usage comes via Google, compared with about 10% via Medline/PubMed. This reflects the readers' familiarity with Google and its ease of use through full-text searching, as opposed to Medline's quality thesaurus indexing. Articles in this first issue of the second volume of Neuro-Oncology Practice highlight topics that span many clinical aspects of the subspeciality. Steroids are perhaps the most universally prescribed medication for patients with brain tumors of all grades, and as new therapies are developed it is critical to know how they may interact with steroids. Roth et al. provide an excellent update on the mechanism of action, dosing, and side effects of corticosteroids as well as potential contraindications for newer therapies. Another familiar topic that is examined anew is the use of Karnofsky Performance Status scores for evaluating cognitive function. Martin et al. unfortunately find that high KPS scores do not always correlate with high capacity for medical decision-making, stressing the need for providers not to rely solely on KPS when determining whether or not patients are able to fully comprehend treatment choices. Neuropsychologist Karin Gehring and colleagues present data to support combining both subjective and objective tools for obtaining an accurate neuropsychological assessment. Subjective data can be very valuable for information on the patient's quality of life, but may not always be directly tied to neuropsychological deficit. Neuropsychological assessment for survivors of childhood brain tumors can be especially important for discovering long-term deficits that should be addressed by physicians. While administering regular assessments to every patient may not be feasible, Hardy et al. find that parent-reported attention surveys could be a simple and cost-effective way of identifying children that could be suffering from neuropsychological impairments. This issue also contains two articles that delve into the use of radiation therapy for extensive disease. The M.D. Anderson experience with Gamma Knife radiosurgery for brainstem metastases emphasizes its ability to provide local control of many of these lesions. Back et al. examine whether concomitant bevacizumab may reduce the morbidity that can be associated with large-volume irradiation for refractory high-grade glioma. I would like to thank my co-editors and the editorial board for their role in making the first year of Neuro-Oncology Practice such a success and am looking forward to collaborating with them on future issues.