Continuing Authorship Proliferation in the Cardiothoracic Surgical Literature

"Publish or perish" is a grim reality for many academic surgeons and has led to authorship proliferation and internationalization of the cardiothoracic surgical literature. We sought to examine whether these trends are continuing today. We reviewed 17 267 articles from 2007 to 2022 in the archives of the 3 leading cardiothoracic journals (European Journal of Cardiothoracic Surgery, EJCTS; Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, JTCVS; Annals of Thoracic Surgery, ATS). Data on the number of authors and geographic origin were collected. The mean number (± SE) of authors per article increased with time for all journals: from 6.5 ± 0.1 in 2007 to 9.0 ± 0.2 in 2022 for the EJCTS (P < .001), from 7.4 ± 0.1 in 2007 to 8.2 ± 0.2 in 2022 for the JTCVS (P < .001), and from 6.9 ± 0.1 in 2007 to 9.0 ± 0.2 in 2022 for the ATS(P < .001). North American institutions increasingly dominate JTCVS/ATS, whilst European manuscripts decline in all journals. Only EJCTS showed increasing internationalization. Authorship proliferation continues in the 3 leading cardiothoracic surgical journals, reflecting the natural evolution of the demands of modern research and career progression.