Editorial—Going Global: CORR® Best-paper Awards for China and Latin America in 2015

A s the world’s general-interest orthopaedic journal, Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research takes seriously its obligations to help support and disseminate research from scientists the world over. Musculoskeletal injury and illness do not respect political borders, and so CORR is proud to focus global expertise on global problems, and share the solutions with a truly global readership. Between 2012 and 2015, consumption of CORR’s content—as measured by downloads—has nearly doubled. In 2015, readers downloaded this Journal’s articles about 2 million times; some 60% of this usage came from outside North America. The research we publish, likewise, is global in origin; about half of CORR’s papers come from non-US centers. Our diverse editorial team includes more than two dozen international editors. This is critically important to us; cultural issues matter, local knowledge is invaluable, and specific editorial expertise about the patient populations surveyed helps us—and our readers—get the most out of the manuscripts we receive. We feel strongly that solving problems affecting all the world’s citizens calls for research from all around the world. With that in mind, we are proud to sponsor—and pleased to announce the winners of—a number of awards that help promote research in regions where the scientific infrastructure is still developing. The winners of the 2015 CORR Best-paper Awards for China and Latin America were chosen from among those papers published electronically in the Journal in the last 12 months, and they represent some can’t-miss reading. The winner of the CORR Bestpaper from China Award for 2015 came from Lanzhou University in northwest China, and is titled ‘‘Does Arthroplasty Provide Better Outcomes Than Internal Fixation At Midand Long-term Followup? A Meta-analysis’’ (DOI: 10.1007/s11999-015-43453). This paper by Jiang and colleagues [3] is not the first meta-analysis on femoral neck fracture treatment. In contrast to so many other important therapeutic dilemmas in orthopaedic surgery where the evidence is scanty, numerous well-designed randomized trials have compared surgical treatments for hip fractures. As such, earlier reports have pooled data on this subject [2, 4]. But this award-winning paper is special because it evaluates studies presenting longer-term followup using methods that are uncommonly robust, and so its conclusions—the functional benefits of arthroplasty are not offset by any discernible increase in mortality associated with that larger procedure—appear definitive. This is an enormous clinical problem, and we congratulate the authors on a job well done. The author certifies that he, or any members of his immediate family, has no commercial associations (eg, consultancies, stock ownership, equity interest, patent/licensing arrangements, etc) that might pose a conflict of interest in connection with the submitted article. All ICMJE Conflict of Interest Forms for authors and Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research editors and board members are on file with the publication and can be viewed on request. The opinions expressed are those of the writers, and do not reflect the opinion or policy of CORR or The Association of Bone and Joint Surgeons.