CANCER BIOTHERAPY & RADIOPHARMACEUTICALSVolume 17, Number 6, 2002© Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.

Editorial

Year 2002: The Best Year Yet for CB&R

Gerald L. DeNardo, M.D. and Robert K. Oldham, M.D.

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The year 2002 was another highly successful yearfor our journal. The mission of CB&R and its Ed-itors is to attract and communicate publicationson novel therapies and imaging that are biomol-ecularly based. This mission places the journal ina strategic position because of the remarkable de-velopments in the area of our purview. Biother-apy and imaging are making, and promise to continue to make, great contributions to the man-agement of patients with cancer. This is evidentfrom the expenditures by biotechnology andlong-established drug companies. Over 350 newmedicines are now in clinical testing for cancer.A minority are chemotherapy drugs; most areforms of biotherapy, of rational design and tar-geted specifically to the cancer. Such biophar-maceuticals are expected to be more effective andless toxic than chemotherapy. Monoclonal anti-bodies, as a class of drugs, have been a majorsuccess story in the biotechnology industry. Cur-rently, 18 monoclonal antibodies have been ap-proved for use in the United States. It is estimatedthat there are an additional 100 monoclonal anti-bodies currently being tested in patients. Totalrevenues in calendar year 2000 for all therapeu-tic antibodies exceeded $2.6 billion. By 2010, themarket is expected to reach $24 billion. In the in-terval since its approval in 1997, the use of rit-uximab (Rituxan®) has been extended from sin-gle agent immunotherapy for indolentnon-Hodgkin’s lymphoma to combination ther-apy for indolent and aggressive non-Hodgkin’s

lymphoma. Many other applications, includingthose for autoimmune diseases, are under inves-tigation. The related anti-CD20 antibody, ibritu-momab, labeled with yttrium-90 (Zevalin™), aradioisotopic source for systemic radiotherapy,was approved in 2002 and could prove equallyexciting. In the randomized trial that led to its ap-proval, radioimmunotherapy with Zevalin™ pro-vided better therapeutic responses than Rituxan®

in non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. All of this is “goodnews” for cancer patients who are much in needof these advances. All of us involved with thisjournal are dedicated to bringing these importantadvances to the medical community, and ulti-mately to our patients, as rapidly as possible.

As an international journal, CB&R attracts ar-ticles from authors throughout the world. Sincethe theme for CB&R is cancer, its contributorsand its audience include physicians and scientistsin all branches of cancer, medical, surgical, radi-ation, and nuclear, and scientists involved in ex-plorations of the molecular mechanisms of can-cer. In addition to submitted material, the Editorshave solicited reviews of novel and state-of-theart therapy, imaging, and science in cancer fromdistinguished authors. We have made greatstrides in the past year. To provide measures ofthe impact of a journal, citation analysis is usedto quantify its importance. If a journal is citedmore frequently, it is believed to have greater im-pact. Another indicator is the immediacy of cita-tion after publication of the article. These testsrepresent trailing indicators to accommodate theturn-around required for citation. The directionof the indicators is particularly relevant. Thenumber of citations for CB&R, its impact factor,and immediacy index once again improved by

Address communications to Gerald L. DeNardo, M.D.,Molecular Cancer Institute, 1508 Alhambra Blvd., Room3100, Sacramento, CA 95616. Telephone (916) 734-3787,Fax: (916) 451-2857, e-mail: gldenardo@ucdavis.edu

factors of three or more in 2001, the latest avail-able year. In 2001, CB&R was cited six timesmore frequently than in 1998, its impact factortripled, and its immediacy index more than dou-bled. Similarly, our ranking among oncology,imaging, experimental oncology, or pharmacol-ogy journals improved substantially. As pre-dicted, these favorable trends have continued toaccelerate. This progress has occurred because ofthe quality of our contributors and referees. Thereis no substitute for qualified and committed ref-erees.

Authors and readers gravitate to journals withinfluence, timely review and publication, andopenness to novel ideas. The number of submis-sions and their quality has continued to increaseso that our present struggle is to continue ourcommitment to rapid publication. Despite ourbest efforts, the turn-around time from accep-tance to publication has slipped to about sixmonths because of the increased volume of sub-missions. We have been able to maintain this fa-vorable turn-around during the course of changesthat have lead to improvements in the journal. Af-ter long and highly dedicated service to the jour-

nal, Carolyn Potts found it necessary to discon-tinue her pivotal role in the production of the jour-nal. The Editors and the journal are heavily in-debted to Carolyn for maintenance of theexcellent quality of the journal over the years.Her resignation led to centralization of the pub-lication portion of the process in the offices ofthe publisher, in common with most of the otherpublications of Mary Ann Liebert Publishers, Inc.Although this change involved some trade-offs,mostly it has led to increased uniformity of thequality of the journal, and provision of galleys tothe authors and Editors prior to publication. Ofcourse, the galley process added some delay tothe publication process.

A few final comments. CB&R became avail-able in an electronic format on line early in 2001.You may assess this and other Liebert journalsby visiting www.liebertonline.com. We wish toalert you to Updates on “The Management ofMultiple Myeloma,” and on “ . . . Thyroid Can-cer” in 2003. Additionally, CB&R will bring col-lections of the latest developments in radiationdosimetry for molecular-targeted radiation ther-apy in 2003.

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