LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

 

Spanish in international bibliography

El castellano en la bibliografía internacional

 

 

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Key words: Endoscopic percutaneous gastrostomies. Impact factor.

Palabras clave: Gastrostomías percutáneas endoscópicas. Factor de impacto.

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Dear Editor,

I have read with interest the review article about endoscopic percutaneous gastrostomies written by Lucendo et al. (1). There is no doubt that it is a good update.

My only concern is that the authors have restricted their bibliographic search to articles written in English. This originates a paradox: There are articles from Saudi Arabia (2), Singapore (3), India (4) and Korea (5) but they miss the opportunity to check the 37 articles published about this subject in the Revista Española de Enfermedades Digestivas (REED) (http://apps.webofknowledge.com/summary.do?product=UA&search_mode=GeneralSearch&qid=1&SID=Y1dq8kS3hPTBdWgnBIj&page=) or the 18 articles, which appeared in Nutrición Hospitalaria (Nutr Hosp) (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=endoscopic+gastrostomy+and+nutricion+hospitalaria).

Throughout the 40 years of my career, I experienced three different fields of professional activity: Gastrointestinal surgery, dedication to artificial nutrition and editor of the journal Nutrición Hospitalaria. These aspects allow me to say that many of the articles published both in REED and in Nutr Hosp are written by prestigious experts in gastroenterology, nutrition and/or surgery.

We all had the temptation to publish our articles in English sometime during our life, as the gastroenterologists of Tomelloso (Ciudad Real, Spain) are doing in this occasion because, without doubt, any piece of work published in that language is cited more frequently in "impact factor journals" than what is published in our language. This was due to the imbalance between the amount of indexed Spanish vs. English journals in the web of science (in favor of English), representing a greater difference than what would be expected based solely on the scientific productivity.

Fortunately, this disadvantage of the Spanish language is improving. SciELO data base, which includes the most important Ibero Latin American journals, has been incorporated to the web of science. Even the web of science itself can now be consulted in Spanish. In basis of the aforementioned facts, I take the liberty to recommend not to exclude Spanish documents.

If you have the chance to publish your articles in English, please go ahead, but at the same time, upload the Spanish full text in the journal. This is one of the miracles offered by virtual publications: Owing to their limited occupation of physical space, the possibility of image, video or text dissemination is in theory unlimited.

Had the authors extended their bibliographic search in the web of science back to thirty years and not excluded Spanish language, they would have found that the oldest article, published in this journal in 1985, describes the first endoscopic gastrostomy inserted in Spain (6) and that the last five articles published in Nutrición Hospitalaria regarding this subject have been published in 2014. In addition, one of these articles (7) describes the endoscopic support to gastrostomy placement, a technique not mentioned in the review of Lucendo et al. (1)

 

Jesus M. Culebras
Member of the Royal Academy of Medicine and Surgery
of Valladolid and of the Institute of Biomedicine (IBIOMED).
University of León. Leon, Spain. Editor of Nutrición Hospitalaria

 

References

1. Lucendo AJ, Friginal-Ruiz AB. Percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy: An update on its indications, management, complications, and care. Rev Esp Enferm Dig 2014;106:529-39.         [ Links ]

2. Born P, Winker J, Jung A, et al. Buried bumper -The endoscopic approach. Arab J Gastroenterol 2014;15:82-4. DOI: 10.1016/j.ajg. 2014.05.001.         [ Links ]

3. Luman W, Kwek KR, Loi KL, et al. Percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy -indications and outcome of our experience at the Singapore General Hospital. Singapore Med J 2001;42:460-5.         [ Links ]

4. Vyawahare MA, Shirodkar M, Gharat A, et al. A comparative observational study of early versus delayed feeding after percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy. Indian J Gastroenterol 2013;32:366-8. DOI: 10.1007/s12664-013-0348-8.         [ Links ]

5. Lee CG, Kang HW, Lim YJ, et al. Comparison of complications between endoscopic and percutaneous replacement of percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy tubes. J Korean Med Sci 2013;28:1781-7. DOI: 10.3346/jkms.2013.28.12.1781.         [ Links ]

6. Culebras-Fernández JM, Martínez Gago J, Chasco C, et al. Colocación de una sonda de gastrostomía por vía endoscópica. Rev Esp Enf Ap Dig 1985;68:511-5.         [ Links ]

7. Klek S, Hermanowicz A, Salowka J, et al. Ultrasound-guided percutaneous 'push-introducer' gastrostomy is a valuable method for accessing the gastrointestinal tract. Nutr Hosp 2014;29:365-9. DOI: 10.1016/S0261-5614(14)50559-6.         [ Links ]