Clinical Chemistry Laboratory Medicine in the post-acute COVID-19 era

There is now indisputable evidence that the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has not only had a dramatic impact on healthcare, society and the economy, but has also disrupted the world of scientific publishing. It is therefore not surprising that, especially in the initial phase of the pandemic, a few seminal papers have attracted an enormous number of citations, which has led to a kind of “inflated” impact factor (IF) in the last two years. As for Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (CCLM), IF peaked at 8.49 in the 2021 edition of the JCR, then declined to 6.8 in the 2022 edition of the JCR and stabilized at 3.8 in the latest (2023) edition of the JCR, which is still 3% higher than the last pre-pandemic value (i.e., 3.69). CCLM has also remained in the Q1 of the category “MEDICAL LABORATORY TECHNOLOGY", with an IF score well above the median value of all journals in this category (i.e., 2.4). These general considerations about IF aside, and notwithstanding the inherent ambiguity and potential flaws of journal IFs, CCLM remains a leading journal in the field of laboratory diagnostics after more than 60 years. Our main aim remains unchanged, namely to publish valid, scientifically sound and interesting articles on clinical laboratory medicine, and we would like to thank once again the Associated Editors, all members of the Editorial Board, the editorial team in Berlin and all our reviewers, whose qualified work continues to be fundamental to maintaining high quality in the articles we publish.