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EDITORIAL • Braz. J. Cardiovasc. Surg. 34 (5) • Sep-Oct 2019 • https://doi.org/10.21470/1678-9741-2019-0285   copy

Cardiovascular disease: The Brazilian research contribution

Authorship SCIMAGO INSTITUTIONS RANKINGS

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death around the world. According to a study from the World Economic Forum, the economic burden of this disease to society reached US$ 863 billion in 2010, with an estimation to rise by 22% to US$ 1,044 in 2030[11 Bloom DE, Cafiero ET, Jané-Llopis E, Abrahams-Gessel S, Bloom LR, Fathima S, et al. The global economic burden of noncommunicable diseases [Internet]. Geneva (CH): World Economic Forum, 2011 [cited 2019 Sep 20]. 48 p. Available from: http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Harvard_HE_GlobalEconomicBurdenNonCommunicableDiseases_2011.pdf
http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Harvard... ]. Likewise, recent studies have shown that in Brazil ischemic heart disease and stroke have been the main cause of death since the end of the 1960s, costing a total of R$ 56.2 billion just in 2015[22 GBD 2016 Brazil Collaborators. Burden of disease in Brazil, 1990-2016: a systematic subnational analysis for the global burden of disease study 2016. Lancet. 2018;392(10149):760-75. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31221-2.
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31... ,33 Stevens B, Pezzullo L, Verdian L, Tomlinson J, George A, Bacal F. The economic burden of heart conditions in Brazil. Arq Bras Cardiol. 2018;111(1):29-36. doi:10.5935/abc.20180104.
https://doi.org/10.5935/abc.20180104... ]. Due to Brazil’s large size, its 27 states have developed unevenly, so states located in the south and southeast regions of the country are more developed and have the best infrastructure[22 GBD 2016 Brazil Collaborators. Burden of disease in Brazil, 1990-2016: a systematic subnational analysis for the global burden of disease study 2016. Lancet. 2018;392(10149):760-75. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31221-2.
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31... ]. Hence, such differences ought to be considered when allocating resources efficiently to improve healthcare among the population. It is imperative to seek knowledge through locally-based research as its outcomes may be used as a tool to instruct policy makers, regional-level physicians, health professionals and the general population[44 Behague D, Tawiah C, Rosato M, Some T, Morrison J. Evidence-based policy-making: the implications of globally-applicable research for context-specific problem-solving in developing countries. Soc Sci Med. 2009;69(10):1539-46. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2009.08.006.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2009... ].

To establish the Brazilian contribution to cardiovascular disease research, the Scival platform (www.scival.com) was used, which analyzes data from several sources such as Scopus and ScienceDirect. In the case of patent article citations, data emanate from European Patent Office, Intellectual Property Office, Japan Patent Office, United States Patent and Trademark Office and the World Intellectual Property Organization. A query was made to retrieve data from Brazil which had been published within the most recent 5-year period (2014-2018) in the field of “Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine”. One of the key features of Scival is that it disaggregates each field into specific research topics. As approximately 96,000 specific research topics have been defined, topic clusters are formed by aggregating topics with similar research interest, creating a broader area of research[55 Scival (2015) Scival user guide. Oxford (UK): Elsevier, c2019. p.106.]. It is important to note that a publication can belong to only one topic, consequently, to one topic cluster.

The indicators used for this analysis were the following:

  • Scholarly output: The number of documents published within the 5-year period in the topic cluster.

  • Growth (%): This indicator represents the increase or decrease of published documents within the specific topic cluster in the 5-year period.

  • International collaboration (%): The proportion of published documents authored by researchers from Brazil and another countries.

  • Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI): Indicator that refers to citations received in the year of publication plus the following 3 years. FWCI of 1.00 means that the publications have been cited at world average for similar publications. Thus, a score of 1.17 indicates that the outputs have been cited 17% more than expected. Contrarily, a FWCI of 0.77 means 23% less cited than the world average.

  • Patent-cited scholarly output: The count of scholarly outputs published by the country that have been cited in patents.

As Table 1 reveals, the field of “Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine” in Brazil is constituted by 47 topic clusters, ordered according to the number of papers published within the 5-year period. The most prolific topic was “Percutaneous coronary intervention; Patients; Myocardial infarction”, with 584 papers, of which 49.3% were the product of an international collaboration. While its growth has diminished slightly over the 5-year period, its FWCI score denotes that these papers have been cited 99% more than expected. In fact, the six most prolific topic cluster exhibits an FWCI >1, revealing the quality of the work published.

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Table 1
Topic clusters associated to the field of cardiovascular disease.

Another important aspect to consider is the impact of the Brazilian papers in patent generation. As Collins and Wyatt[66 Collins P, Wyatt S. Citations in patents to the basic research literature. Res Pol. 1988; 17(2):65-74. doi:10.1016/0048-7333(88)90022-4.
https://doi.org/10.1016/0048-7333(88)900... ] stated, the main characteristic of papers cited by patents must be in a rapidly developing field with a high scientific content. To understand the real value of these papers, 509 US patents issued from 1987 to 2003 cited 273 Chilean papers from several disciplines[77 Krauskopf M, Krauskopf E, Méndez B. Low awareness of the link between science and innovation affects public policies in developing countries: the Chilean case. Scientometrics. 2007;72(1):93-103. doi:10.1007/s11192-007-1737-5.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-007-1737-... ]. In this regard, Table 2 summarizes the Brazilian papers cited in 16 patents issued from 2014 to 2018.

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Table 2
Brazilian papers cited in patents.

Undoubtedly, research developed by Brazilian investigators in topics related to cardiovascular disease has proven valuable, not only for the academic community, but also for the industry. I believe now is the time to make this research useful for policy makers to influence their assessments.

REFERENCES

  • 1
    Bloom DE, Cafiero ET, Jané-Llopis E, Abrahams-Gessel S, Bloom LR, Fathima S, et al. The global economic burden of noncommunicable diseases [Internet]. Geneva (CH): World Economic Forum, 2011 [cited 2019 Sep 20]. 48 p. Available from: http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Harvard_HE_GlobalEconomicBurdenNonCommunicableDiseases_2011.pdf
    » http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Harvard_HE_GlobalEconomicBurdenNonCommunicableDiseases_2011.pdf
  • 2
    GBD 2016 Brazil Collaborators. Burden of disease in Brazil, 1990-2016: a systematic subnational analysis for the global burden of disease study 2016. Lancet. 2018;392(10149):760-75. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31221-2.
    » https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31221-2
  • 3
    Stevens B, Pezzullo L, Verdian L, Tomlinson J, George A, Bacal F. The economic burden of heart conditions in Brazil. Arq Bras Cardiol. 2018;111(1):29-36. doi:10.5935/abc.20180104.
    » https://doi.org/10.5935/abc.20180104
  • 4
    Behague D, Tawiah C, Rosato M, Some T, Morrison J. Evidence-based policy-making: the implications of globally-applicable research for context-specific problem-solving in developing countries. Soc Sci Med. 2009;69(10):1539-46. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2009.08.006.
    » https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2009.08.006
  • 5
    Scival (2015) Scival user guide. Oxford (UK): Elsevier, c2019. p.106.
  • 6
    Collins P, Wyatt S. Citations in patents to the basic research literature. Res Pol. 1988; 17(2):65-74. doi:10.1016/0048-7333(88)90022-4.
    » https://doi.org/10.1016/0048-7333(88)90022-4
  • 7
    Krauskopf M, Krauskopf E, Méndez B. Low awareness of the link between science and innovation affects public policies in developing countries: the Chilean case. Scientometrics. 2007;72(1):93-103. doi:10.1007/s11192-007-1737-5.
    » https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-007-1737-5

Publication Dates

  • Publication in this collection
    11 Nov 2019
  • Date of issue
    Sep-Oct 2019
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