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Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, Gifu University School of Medicine, Gifu, Japan Faculty of Human Life and Environment, Nara Women’s University, Nara, Japan
To the Editor:
Endoh et al. recently published a series of three studies that reveal the effects of hypotension-induced agents on the dynamic cerebral autoregulation in patients with propofol and fentanyl anesthesia (1–3). In the first article, they studied the influence of nicardipine (1), in the second study they compared the effect of nitroglycerine and prostaglandin E1 (2), while in the third work, they used these three agents (3). They released thigh cuff rapidly to decrease systemic blood pressure in their earlier two studies, while they introduced phenylephrine to increase blood pressure in the third paper. Although the methods they used are different, the findings in the third work are not more relevant than that in the earlier studies, because they evaluated the dynamic cerebral autoregulation itself under same conditions. The problem is that they published their works in different journals without citing each other. Because there is no clear definition of "duplicate publication of the same, or very similar, work," we believe that authors must cite or inform readers about all their "similar works" when they submit them for publication, and they have to let Editor-in-Chief judge this matter. Otherwise, there will be many redundant publications.
References
Department of Emergency and Critical Care Medicine, Niigata University Faculty of Medicine, Niigata, Japan
In Response:
Thank you Drs. Nagase and Ando-Nagase for critically reading our three articles (1–3) and their concerns about our decision about citing them. Although the anesthetic regimen and the methods utilized were common, our earlier two articles (2,3) fundamentally differed because different drugs were tested on different patient populations. In addition, dynamic cerebral autoregulation is a relatively new concept that is completely different from static pressure autoregulation; dynamic cerebral autoregulation, which was studied in the first two articles (2,3), is sensitive to pressure pulsation and is completed within 7–10 seconds following a stepwise change in mean arterial pressure (MAP). In contrast, static pressure autoregulation, which was studied in the last article (1), follows the dynamic response and is sensitive to changes in MAP. Actually, the methods used to assess dynamic and static autoregulation are also completely different. There have only been two reports with simultaneous measurements of dynamic and static autoregulation suggesting a close relationship between them (4,5). Accordingly, we believe that the findings of the latest article (1) are not similar to, and certainly not the same as, the previous two articles (2,3).
Drs. Nagase and Ando-Nagase stated that our manuscripts were published in different journals and did not cite each other. However, to describe more accurately, only one paper was submitted to another journal (2), and the first-published article was indeed cited (3) in a subsequently published article (1). Regarding the second article (2), we believe that citation of the earliest article (3) in the second article was absolutely optional because different drugs were tested, opposite results were obtained, and the method utilized was an established one (thigh cuffs test). In the latest article (1), we cited the first article, which was published at the time; however, the second article was not cited because it had not yet been accepted for publication.
In this case, the only other option would have been to hold onto clinically relevant data for more than 2 years to publish one large article that combined the three studies; however, we felt this to be unnecessary because the studies were performed on different patient populations at different times and because either the drugs tested or the methods utilized were clearly different enough to warrant separate publications.
References
This article has been cited by other articles:
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  Y. Bryan and D. Glick Effects of Anesthesia on Linguistic Skills Anesth. Analg., May 1, 2003; 96(5): 1534 - 1534. [Full Text] [PDF]
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