Furnishing the Cachexia Landscape: A Year of Research in JCSM

2022 was another eventful year for the ‘Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle’ (JCSM). This year was already the 12th time that JCSM was published together with the ‘Society on Sarcopenia, Cachexia, and Wasting Disorders (SCWD)’ and Wiley. Editor-in-chief of JCSM continues to be Prof. Dr. Stefan Anker (Berlin, Germany) together with Co-Editor-in-chief Prof. Dr. Stephan von Haehling (Göttingen, Germany) and Senior Consulting Editor Prof. Dr. Andrew Coats (Rome, Italy). The editorial office is run by Monika Diek and Corinna Denecke. JCSM continues to be a place for cachexia, sarcopenia and muscle wasting research, but also research on how the human body, cells and animals are affected by cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, heart failure, HIV/Aids, malnutrition, ageing and other chronic conditions. The versatile range of up-to-date research covers basic science and preclinical studies as much as current clinical research outcomes—additionally giving researchers the opportunity to summarize and discuss recent publications in editorials. Many researchers, nurses, clinicians, dieticians, pharmacists, physiotherapists, biologists and many others that are interested in these topics read and share the articles of the journal, that is, currently published 6 times per year. In 2022 (until November), at total of 775 000 downloads from around the world of articles published at JCSM were already counted. Most downloads came from China (173 681), the United States (118 306), Japan (66 147), the United Kingdom (36 452) and South Korea (33 629) (Figure 1), but also smaller countries like Switzerland (7305), Hong Kong (15 980) and Panama (147). The number of submissions to JCSM increases every year (so far 833 this year), and only with the great help of many associate editors and reviewers that we want to thank for their important work, it is possible to continue to publish scientific articles and maintain the 2021 impact factor of JCSM at 12.063. The best cited research articles so far since JCSM started are shown in Table 1. The best cited article so far continues to be an editorial by von Haehling and Anker1 (‘Cachexia as a major underestimated and unmet medical need: facts and numbers’) with 640 citations. But also the best cited paper from 2019 by Cederholm et al.2 (‘GLIM criteria for the diagnosis of malnutrition—a consensus report from the global clinical nutrition community’) has already been cited 421 times so far until September 2022 and therefore takes the place as the second most cited article of all time. In total, the top 20 cited articles from 2019, 2020 and 2021 (Tables 2-4) have now already been cited: 2022, 898 and 295 times. Regarding the most downloaded articles in 2022, the readers mainly focused on articles that were published in 2022 or between 2017 and 2022. The top three downloaded papers from 2022 were (1) ‘Skeletal muscle alterations in patients with acute Covid-19 and post-acute sequelae of Covid-19’ by Wüst et al.78 (downloaded 11.727 times), (2) ‘Systematic review and meta-analysis of protein intake to support muscle mass and function in healthy adults’ by Nunes et al.79 (downloaded 10.641 times) and (3) ‘GLIM criteria for the diagnosis of malnutrition—a consensus report from the global clinical nutrition community’ by Cederholm et al.2 (downloaded 6.319 times). Additionally, celebrating a small jubilee in 2022: the 15th congress of SCWD took place in Lisboa (Portugal) this year. Many researchers and scientists from several different countries met in person and digitally to discuss the newest research with regard to cachexia, muscle wasting and sarcopenia. The participants enjoyed many great talks from experts in the field and vivid panel discussions. The authors certify that they comply with the ethical guidelines for authorship and publishing in the Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle.80 All authors declare no conflict of interest.