To the Editor,

A little over two years ago, I addressed the Indian Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery (IJTCS) with a letter to its Editor-in-Chief Dr. OP Yadava, in which I congratulated myself on the inclusion of the IJTCS in PubMed, the worldwide used free search engine accessing MEDLINE, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) of the US premier bibliographic database [1]. I was very happy that a couple of my recent articles already published in the IJTCS were referenced for the first time in PubMed.

Now I am back to the IJTCS and Dr. OP Yadava with the joy of knowing that on June 28, 2023, Clarivate Plc. (https://clarivate.com.) released the 2023 update to its annual Journal of Citation Reports (JCR) and that the IJTCS has been accorded 0.7 impact factor (IF) points. The Journal Impact Factor (JIF™) is a ratio which divides a journal’s received citations by a count on its published articles. The IF is then a scientometric index which reflects the yearly mean number of citations or articles published in the last two years, in this case in the IJTCS. This highlights the relative importance of a journal in a given field of interest, in our case, Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery.

Of course, a number of criticisms have been made with regard the use of IF; it is likely an imperfect index to assess the journal’s quality. Recent discussions on the usefulness and appropriateness of the IF have raised controversial opinions [2]. Furthermore, we are not exempt from the possibility of fraud, and that the behavior of certain individuals or institutions may be inappropriate in the field of scientific publishing around the world. However, IJTCS receiving an initial 0.7 points is excellent news for the Indian Association of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgeons (IACTS) and the IJTCS. The IJTCS website confirms other relevant metrics such as 0.6 five-year IF (springer.com/journal/12055/). The five-year IF is the average number of times the articles from the journal, the IJTCS, published in the past five years have been cited in the JCR. This 0.6 five-year IF is also excellent as a metric for the first time. One would colloquially say that the five-year IF is an “enhanced” IF.

In any case and despite the ongoing discussions in the international publishing arena, the IF continues to be a useful, albeit imperfect, metric. In my 2021 letter to the Editor, I insisted on our responsibility to keep the journal alive. Regardless of the accorded IF, we have to remember that quality is a complex process that individuals, institutions, and organizations such as IACTS and its IJTCS must seriously address [1]. Congratulations again for this “reward” in the form of an almost universally accepted imperfect, but useful, metric.