Evolution and transformation of JVS-CIT.

I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.

As 2021 comes to an end, we are pleased to report that the state of the Journal of Vascular Surgery Publications is stronger than at any time in the history of our journals. This was a year of growth and transformation. The Journal of Vascular Surgery (JVS) earned an Impact Factor of 4.268, an all-time high in the 38-year existence of this premier international publication. The Journal of Vascular Surgery: Venous and Lymphatic Disorders (JVS-VL) reinforced its position as the leading publication in the international venous and lymphatic field with an Impact Factor of 2.859 in the 9th year of its publication.

This journal, The Journal of Vascular Surgery Cases, Innovations and Techniques has been growing rapidly, publishing an estimated 33% more articles this year than just 2 years ago (Table). It continues to be the premier international journal dedicated to publishing peer reviewed high-quality case reports, articles on techniques, videos, and images related to all aspects of arterial, venous, and lymphatic diseases, including the placement and maintenance of arteriovenous dialysis accesses. And, it continues to place its emphasis on the practicing clinician, publishing articles by vascular specialists from 40 countries. In 2021, we modified the name of the journal to reflect the increased scope of the journal, which will now accept articles on all areas of innovation, including practice, education, outcome assessment, and procedural technique as well.

Table

Top 10 most viewed articles, published in 2020

Publication year	Document title	Authors	Volume	Issue	Views
2020	Achieving a popliteal venous access for renal replacement therapy in critically ill COVID-19 patient in prone position1	Adams E, Mousa AY	6	2	122
2020	Arterial thrombotic complications in COVID-19 patients2	Levolger S, Bokkers RPH, Wille J, Kropman RHJ, de Vries JPM	6	3	82
2020	Arterial thromboembolism associated with COVID-19 and elevated D-dimer levels3	Garg K, Barfield ME, Pezold ML, Sadek M, Cayne NS, Lugo J, Maldonado TS, Berland TL, Rockman CB, Jacobowitz GR	6	3	75
2020	Atypical COVID-19 presentation in a patient undergoing staged thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysm repair4	Resch T, Vogt K, Eldrup N	6	3	75
2020	Acute aortic thrombosis in COVID-195	Baeza C, González A, Torres P, Pizzamiglio M, Arribas A, Aparicio C	6	3	63
2020	Leiomyosarcoma of the inferior vena cava6	Chzhao A, Zotikov A, Karmazanovsky G, Gurmikov B, Ivandaev A.	6	2	61
2020	Acute thrombotic events as initial presentation of patients with COVID-19 infection7	Ilonzo N, Rao A, Berger K, Phair J, Vouyouka A, Ravin R, Han D, Finlay D, Tadros R, Marin M, Faries P	6	3	57
2020	Acute aortoiliac and infrainguinal arterial thrombotic events in four patients diagnosed with the novel coronavirus 20198	Wengerter SP, Wengerter KR, Masoudpoor H, Sagarwala A, Karim O, Rao N, Gillen J, Choi HM, Bernik T, Schwartz ML	6	4	50
2020	Acute upper limb ischemia as the first manifestation in a patient with COVID-199	Shao T, In-Bok Lee C, Jabori S, Rey J, Duran ER, Kang N	6	4	43
2020	Acute limb ischemia as sole initial manifestation of SARS-CoV-2 infection10	Thompson O, Pierce D, Whang D, O'Malley M, Geise B, Malhotra U	6	4	43

The fourth member of the JVS family, JVS-Vascular Science (JVS-VS), has also grown well beyond expectations. Recognizing the high scientific and editorial standards of this journal, the U.S. National Library of Medicine just accepted JVS-VS into PubMed Central, so all articles will be indexed retroactively starting with Volume 1, 2020.

This welcome evolution of the JVS portfolio occurred in parallel with major transformations of our editorial policies, educational programs, leadership, and boards. The diversity of each journal's editorial board significantly improved and now includes ≥25% women and under-represented minorities.

The second year of the COVID-19 pandemic that has claimed over 700 000 lives in the United States has had a sustained effect on all scientific publications, including the JVS journals. Submission rates of all categories of articles remained extremely high, with an estimated 2859 new submissions in 2021, 31% higher than before the pandemic and just slightly lower than in 2020. In addition, this year we published ∼70 articles on COVID-19 and vascular disease, and our online collection includes 152 articles https://www.jvscit.org/.

Social media continues to be an important tool for JVS Journal Editors, authors, and readers. JVS journals has 4513 Facebook, 7037 Twitter, and 16,861 LinkedIn followers. We are pleased to see that JVS-CIT content usage continues to grow, with an estimated 84,000 full-text downloads and 21,185 average monthly visits in 2021 to our website, www.JVSCIT.org. We hope the progress in the journal quality metrics as well as the increasing social media presence translate into a better understanding of vascular disease by vascular specialists and into better care and outcomes for vascular patients, which is our ultimate goal.

2021 was the year of major transformations in our educational programs. The JVS Journal Club, now held monthly and spearheaded by Paul DiMuzio and Misty Humphries, has had dedicated followers since its inception, with 100 to 150 trainees and practicing vascular surgeons signed up for each event. The quality has been exceptional, the discussions have been lively and engaging, and we anticipate it will continue to prosper. The journal club represents a great way to read and understand papers published in all JVS journals.

Ulka Sachdev-Ost, our new Associate Editor with a focus on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), developed the JVS internship to teach residents and fellows about the process of reviewing vascular papers. Our goal with this educational program was both training the next generation of reviewers as well as improving their clinical and basic research skills. We have seven interns, and each has a mentor who works with them closely in reviewing papers and making suggestions for improvement. Interns also attend monthly presentations by the JVS faculty. These sessions will be available online in the new SVS learning system.

Our collaboration with Audible Bleeding deserves special recognition. The discussion of four highlighted papers each month has opened the journal to those who use podcasts to keep current on vascular publications, often while carrying very busy schedules as residents and fellows. Thanks to Nicole Rich, Adham Elmously, Adam Johnson, Sharif Ellozy, Jacob Schwartzman, and other founders and collaborators of Audible Bleeding who have created a great learning tool for our journal.

The progress JVS journals made was due to the outstanding manuscripts our authors submitted from around the world, and we are grateful for these contributions. Success, however, would not have been achieved without the hard work and expertise of an exceptional JVS-CIT team. We greatly appreciate the contributions of our Associate Editors, Thomas L. Forbes, Fred A. Weaver, Ulka Sachdev-Ost, Alan Dardik, Gregory L. Moneta, and Cynthia K. Shortell; and of our Assistant Editors, Ruth L. Bush, Keith Calligaro, Bernardo Mendes, Paul DiMuzio, and Daniel K. Han. We also express our deepest gratitude to the dedicated members of our JVS-CIT editorial board and our many reviewers, listed below, who have read, reviewed, and re-reviewed an increasing number of submissions. In recognition of a most successful year, we are pleased to extend the current positions of all our editors and editorial board members for the next 6 months. Thus, the new editorial leadership, who will start in July 2022, will have an opportunity to select new editors and editorial board members from the many outstanding individuals who wish to contribute to the JVS journals.

Finally, we are particularly thankful to our dedicated JVS staff, Senior Managing Editor Jessica McEwan, Managing Editors Alexandria Sese and Tyler Cosgrove, Senior Editorial Assistant Carlee Green, and Editorial Assistant Emily Sachs. We are also grateful to the SVS and our sponsoring societies who support our journal and enable us to publish great articles from their annual meetings. As we welcome a new year in 2022, we continue to be thankful for the honor and the opportunity to serve you as editors of the great family of JVS Journals.

Acknowledgment of reviewers

We are extremely grateful for our expert reviewers for their valuable contributions. Peer reviewers work without compensation and unselfishly provide their time and expertise to our journals. Peer review is essential to validate the credibility of scientific research by others working in the same field. The goal is to maintain the integrity of science, to improve the quality of the manuscripts, and provide valuable input to the editors who decide on the fate of the manuscripts.

Acknowledgment of associate and assistant editors

We are blessed to have excellent Associate and Assistant Editors, who helped us in 2021 to manage the increasing number of submissions, without compromising the high quality of the articles published in JVS-CIT. Drs Thomas L. Forbes, Gregory L. Moneta, Cynthia K. Shortell, and Fred A. Weaver served as Associate Editors for Clinical Studies and dealt with an overwhelming number of submissions this year. They were joined by Dr Ulka Sachdev-Ost, who reviewed both clinical and research papers, lead our efforts to improve diversity, equity and inclusion in our editorial system and directs the JVS internship program- great job by a dedicated surgeon. We are also thankful for the contributions of our Associate Editor for Basic Science, Dr Alan Dardik, who excels now in his new role as Editor of JVS-Vascular Science. We are thankful to our Assistant Editors Drs Ruth L. Bush and Keith D. Calligaro, and our new Assistant Editor for Reviews, Dr Audra Duncan for her expertise and hard work. Finally, we recognize the efforts of Dr Bernardo Mendes for his outstanding contributions to get the best vascular image articles published in JVS journals and for spearheading our new vascular video program.

Special thanks to Dr Paul J. DiMuzio, Editor for Social Media, director of the JVS journal clubs and author of JVS Press Releases and to Dr Daniel Han, who has become a master editor producing Visual Abstracts and helped us tremendously to increase our social media presence on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other platforms.

Acknowledgment of the editorial board

We are thankful for the valuable contributions made by our excellent Editorial Board in 2021. In addition to the review and rereview of a large number of original articles, our editorial board members frequently contributed to JVS-CIT with commentaries and editorials. Members of the Editorial Board performed an average of 2 reviews each year, and during 2021 this accounted for 31% of all the reviews performed.

The Editors would like to recognize all board members, who will who continue their assignments in 2022.

Board members

Ahmed M. Abou-Zamzam

Christopher J Abularrage

Jose Ignacio Almeida

Pier Luigi Antignani

Zachary M Arthurs

Faisal Aziz

Trissa Babrowski

Iris Baumgartner

Adam W. Beck

Haraldur Bjarnason

John Blebea

Kellie R. Brown

Patrick H. Carpentier

Venita Chandra

Stephen WK Cheng

Jayer Chung

Daniel G. Clair

Anthony J. Comerota

Rachel Danczyk

David L. Dawson

Randall R. DeMartino

Ellen Dillavou

Hasan Haldun Dosluoglu

Matthew J. Dougherty

Luc Dubois

Matthew J. Eagleton

Eric David Endean

Luke S. Erdoes

Spencer Galt

Hugh Gelabert

Sergio Gianesini

Kathleen D. Gibson

Manjit S Gohel

Jerry Goldstone

Philip P Goodney

Linda Harris

Stéphan Haulon

Nasim Hedayati

Caitlin W. Hicks

Anil Hingorani

Misty D Humphries

Mark D. Iafrati

Karl A. Illig

Glenn R. Jacobowitz

Arjun Jayaraj

William D Jordan

Manju Kalra

Jeanwan Kang

Vikram S. Kashyap

Pedro Pablo Komlos

Nicos Labropoulos

Gregory J. Landry

Byung-Boong Lee

Thomas F. Lindsay

G. Matthew Longo

Marzia Lugli

Fedor Lurie

Thomas G. Lynch

M. Ashraf Mansour

Jesse Manunga

William A. Marston

Tara M Mastracci

Elna M. Masuda

Joseph L. Mills

J. Gregory Modrall

Nick Morrison

Patrick Muck

Naiem Nassiri

Thomas Noppeney

Andrea Tara Obi

Gustavo S. Oderich

Thomas F. O'Donnell

Takao Ohki

Kathleen Ozsvath

Woosup Michael Park

Kurosh Parsi

Marc A. Passman

Lakshmikumar Pillai

Amani Politano

Lori Pounds

Thomas M. Proebstle

Alessandra Puggioni

William J. Quinones-Baldrich

Joseph D. Raffetto

Ravi R Rajani

Seshadri Raju

Todd E. Rasmussen

Lars Rasmussen

Pauline Raymond-Martimbeau

Amy B Reed

Timothy A Resch

Michael J. Rohrer

Vincent L. Rowe

Russell H. Samson

Marc L. Schermerhorn

Joseph R. Schneider

Lewis B. Schwartz

Sherry D Scovell

Sherene Shalhub

Evgeny Vladimirovich Shaydakov

Claudie Mcarthur Sheahan

Jeffrey J Siracuse

Matthew R. Smeds

Benjamin Ware Starnes

David H. Stone

Michael Clinton Stoner

Julianne Stoughton

Gale L. Tang

Ramesh Kaushal Tripathi

Jorge H. Ulloa

Tomasz Urbanek

André M. Van Rij

Thomas W. Wakefield

Jinsong Wang

Jonathan Michael Weiswasser

Mark S Whiteley

Cees Wittens

Karen Woo

Distinguished reviewers

The Editors would like to recognize the Distinguished Reviewers of the Journal of Vascular Surgery: Cases, Innovations and Techniques, who have performed more than five reviews during the review period between January and September 2021, and who consistently performed the highest-rated and timely reviews. Distinguished Reviewers contributed 13% of all reviews. We thank them for their efforts to assure a high-quality peer-review process.

Mario D'Oria

Dean A. Healy

Ying Wei Lum

Jovan Markovic

Bernardo Mendes

William Todd Bohannon

Leo J Daab

Anahita Dua

Yana Etkin

Kakra Hughes

Sharon C Kiang

Meryl Simon Logan

Sebastian Mafeld

Graeme McFarland

Leigh Ann O'Banion

Palma Shaw

Britt H Tonnessen

Douglas Alan Troutman

Eleftherios S. Xenos

Sara L. Zettervall

Reviewers

The Editors are grateful to many clinicians and scientists who performed at least one review for the Journal during 2021. This group includes several New Reviewers. These reviewers performed 57% of all reviews and contributed greatly to our peer-review process. We would like to express our gratitude to them and look forward to working with them and with many more new reviewers in 2022.

Babak Abai

Joshua David Arnold

Martin R. Back

Jeffrey L. Ballard

Donald Baril

Jonathan Bath

Carlos Fares Bechara

Jean-Pierre Becquemin

Jan D. Blankensteijn

Piergiorgio Cao

Ankur Chandra

Jae Sung Cho

Lori Choi

Michael C. Dalsing

Mark G. Davies

Jose Antonio Diaz

Paul Joseph DiMuzio

Audra A. Duncan

John F. Eidt

Jens Eldrup-Jorgensen

James R. Elmore

Darwin Eton

Javairiah Fatima

Bram Fioole

Julie A. Freischlag

Paul J. Gagne

Robert H. Geelkerken

David L. Gillespie

Alexander Gombert

Raul J. Guzman

Randolph P. Guzman

Robert I Hacker

Daniel Kyung Han

Heitham T. Hassoun

Jamal J Hoballah

Glenn C. Hunter

Jeffrey Indes

Takehisa Iwai

Benjamin M Jackson

Steven G. Katz

Lois A. Killewich

Martyn Knowles

Ted R. Kohler

Peter F. Lawrence

Jason T. Lee

Timothy K. Liem

Michael P. Lilly

Bengt Lindblad

Evan C. Lipsitz

Sean P. Lyden

Gregory A Magee

Robert A. McCready

James Thomas McPhee

Tetsuro Miyata

Wesley S. Moore

Nicholas Morrissey

Albeir Mousa

Stuart I. Myers

David G. Neschis

Patrick J. O'Hara

Robert B. Patterson

Tomas Pfeiffer

Eberhard Rabe

John E. Rectenwald

Michael A. Ricci

John J. Ricotta

David Andrew Rigberg

William P. Robinson

Daniel S. Rush

Gregory Gordon Salzler

Malachi G. Sheahan

Niten Singh

Paul C Tang

Gerald S. Treiman

Shirling Tsai

R. James Valentine

Hence J. M. Verhagen

Jean-Paul de Vries

Fred A Weaver

Rana O. Afifi

Dean J Arnaoutakis

amir azarbal

Ali Azizzadeh

Jocelyn Beach

Robert J. Beaulieu

Jaime Benarroch-Gampel

Saideep Bose

David K.W. Chew

Jill Colglazier

Mitchell Wayne Cox

Nuno V Dias

Anton Dias Perera

Young Erben

Robert J Feezor

Charles James Fox

Heather L Gill

Elisa Greco

Eric S Hager

Karem Harth

Ali Irshad

Houman Jalaie

Douglas W Jones

Enjae Jung

David S Kauvar

Issam Koleilat

Kimihiro Komori

Shang Loh

Thanila Macedo

Colleen Moore

Raghu L Motaganahalli

Shardul Bal Nagre

Aravinda Nanjundappa

April Estelle Nedeau

Cassius Iyad Ochoa Chaar

Francisco Osse

Eric K Peden

Danielle Marie Pineda

George Theodore Pisimisis

Elina Quiroga

Bala Ramanan

Muhammad Ali A Rana

Thomas Reifsnyder

Addi Rizvi

Graham Roche-Nagle

Jean Marie Ruddy

Salvatore Scali

Geert Willem Schurink

Jessica P Simons

Christopher L. Skelly

Emily Spangler

Bjoern Dominik Suckow

Matthew Sweet

David Szalay

Tze-Woei Tan

Bryan Tillman

Magdiel Trinidad Hernandez

Brant W. Ullery

Suresh Vedantham

Chandu Vemuri

Grace J Wang

Mark Wheatcroft

Mohamed Adel Zayed

Kenneth Richard Ziegler

Matthew S Edwards

Bruce M Elliott

Patrick J. Geraghty

Sukgu M Han

E. John Harris

Donald L. Jacobs

David N. Ku

Judith C Lin

Mahmoud Malas

Marc E Mitchell

Heron Rodriguez

Oren K. Steinmetz

Gian Franco Veraldi

Statistical reviewers

Finally, the Editors thank our statistical reviewers.

Richard Amdur

William Scott Harmsen

Jay Mandrekar

Edward Joseph Mascha

Charles Miller

JVS interns

We also would like to recognize our JVS Interns, who have already contributed to our journals with numerous excellent reviews. They are our future ambassadors, reviewers and editors. We are thankful for their interest in JVS and for their hard work as our reviewers. We list them below together with their JVS Mentors.

Intern	Mentor
Jessica M. Mayor	Paul DiMuzio
Akiko Tanaka	Keith Calligaro
Anand Brahmandam	Ulka Sachdev
Shernaz S. Dossabhoy	Thomas Forbes
Laura M. Drudi	Audra Duncan
Christopher Audu	Alan Dardik
Elizabeth L. Chou	Gale Tang