A Systematic Review of the Journal of Plastic Surgery

Dr. Carlos Chacon

November 17, 2022

A systematic review of the literature on plastic surgery is useful, but it can also be daunting. There are many issues to consider, including the selection of studies, how the studies are selected, and whether the reporting is of high quality.

Inclusion criteria

Using the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) statement as a framework, we systematically review the reporting quality of recent RCTs in surgery. The aim is to determine whether recent reporting quality in plastic surgery is adequate and to identify ways to improve it.

The Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) statement has been published to ensure maximum transparency in reporting. This study assesses the reporting quality of 172 RCTs conducted in three plastic surgery journals from 1990 to 2005.

The primary outcome was the compliance of each RCT with the CONSORT statement. Various secondary outcomes were also considered. These included the number of authors, the patient-reported outcome measures, impact factor, cost-effectiveness, the burden of disease, multi-versus single center, and the study’s sample size.

During this analysis, 23 articles were found that talked about the benefits of telemedicine, such as making it easier for people in rural areas to get help from experts. Eight articles talked about problems, such as the need for working communication systems.

In addition to examining reporting quality, the study also assessed the state of outcomes studies in plastic surgery. The authors proposed future research directions for  surgery.

Another sixty-six articles were identified as demonstrating significant promise in dermatology. The methods were based on a surface temperature camera and a digital infrared thermographic camera.

Study selection process

The Journal of Plastic Surgery is the official journal of the British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive, and Aesthetic Surgeons. The publication has a stellar track record of publishing original articles about the latest developments in  surgery. Among other things, the journal operates a single blind review process, which is a big deal in the competitive field of plastic surgery research.

A study was conducted to tally the top echelons of the hierarchy as mentioned above. In the context of this study, those mentioned above aforementioned were a list of three prominent plastic surgery journals, namely the American Journal of Surgery (AJPS), the Journal of Plastic Surgery (JPS), and the Journal of Surgery (JPS). After reviewing these papers, a panel of experts, consisting of two plastic and reconstructive surgeons and two eminently qualified reviewers, was assembled to assess the quality of the papers. The results were ranked in order of quality. A final list was assembled, with the best and brightest sorted into the top six. The resulting quality ranking was reported on May 30, 2021. This is an important milestone in the history of the Journal of Plastic Surgery.