ATLANTA – June 26, 2013– The American Cancer Society flagship journal, CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, has been ranked with the highest impact factor on record for any journal recorded in the ISI Journal Citation Reports®. Impact factor is a measure of the average number of citations received by all articles published in a science and social science journal. It reflects the journal's impact on the field of study. Impact factor is calculated each year and published in the ISI Journal Citation Reports® by Thomson Reuters Web of Knowledge.
While CA has been at the top of all oncology journals in impact factor for many years, driven primarily by the annual Cancer Statistics and various guideline articles, the just-released report for 2012 reveals a significant and unprecedented rise. In the most recent ranking, CA reached an impact factor of 153.459, a jump from 101.780 from the previous year. The single-year 51 point jump is the largest recorded. For comparison, the number two ranked journal in oncology has an impact factor number of 35. The rise was the result of several other highly cited articles, including Global Cancer Statistics.
"This ranking puts our journal CA into unprecedented territory, giving it the highest ranking not just for oncology journals, but for any journal of any kind," said Otis W. Brawley, M.D., chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society and editor in chief of CA. "This remarkable ranking reflects the quality of the research done by the Society's world leading epidemiologists and cancer control specialists, whose work frequently appears in CA, and is unequivocal evidence of the esteem in which experts in healthcare and public professionals hold the American Cancer Society's research."