Duplicate and salami publications.

EXTENT OF THE PROBLEM full article in a different language and for a different reader base can be permitted provided the editors of Though there is a high degree of trust and both the journals agree for the same and consider it veracity in medical publications, an occasional beneficial for the readers. report of duplicate and salami publications bothers the medical fraternity. In recent years, On the other hand, slicing of data from a single research there have been more than 100 cases of notices process or gathered during a single study period, into of duplicate or redundant publications in different pieces, creating individual manuscripts from various journals. Byron Bailey, Editor, Archives each piece and publishing these to different journals of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, or even the same journal is called ‘salami publication’ found that of 1000 authors chosen at random or ‘salami slicing’. Publishing the radiological findings from his journal, 201 published 644 articles of cases of cerebral hydatid disease to a radiological which could be labelled as duplicate. During journal and the neurosurgical aspects of it to a their work on impact of duplicate publication neurological journal is salami slicing. Exceptions are on meta-analysis, Tramer et al found that 17% large clinical or epide-miological studies with results of the manuscripts were covertly duplicated. that cannot be published simultaneously or are such Similarly, during a meta-analysis on exogenous that they address different and distinctly important surfactant, Raju found 6 of 35 articles to questions. For other studies focused to a small contain overlapping data. population size, with overlapping results, it is best to publish the results together to form a single more WHAT CONSTITUTES DUPLICATE cohesive and informative paper than two, without AND SALAMI PUBLICATION? being excessively long.