Fact-checked by Grok 2 weeks ago

Cureus

Cureus, formally known as the Cureus Journal of Medical Science, is an open-access, online-only, multispecialty medical journal that publishes peer-reviewed articles across various fields of medicine and biomedical science.^[1] Launched in 2009 from facilities affiliated with Stanford School of Medicine, it operates on a model designed to expedite publication and democratize access to medical research by minimizing traditional editorial gatekeeping and leveraging community-driven evaluation.^[2] Acquired by Springer Nature in 2022, the journal has amassed over 125,000 citations and achieved an Impact Factor of 1.3, reflecting its growing footprint in scholarly dissemination despite its unconventional processes.^[3]^[4]^[5] The journal's core innovation lies in its peer-review mechanism, which requires initial favorable commentary from at least two registered medical experts before acceptance, supplemented by post-publication metrics like the proprietary Scholarly Impact Quotient (SIQ) to gauge ongoing credibility through reader upvotes and expert endorsements.^[6] This approach aims to foster rapid sharing of clinically relevant findings while relying on collective scrutiny to filter quality, bypassing protracted anonymous reviews common in legacy journals.^[7] However, it has drawn scrutiny for potential vulnerabilities to manipulation, including SIQ gaming and insufficient safeguards against low-quality submissions.^[8] Notable achievements include PubMed indexing, which enhances visibility for its articles, and partnerships with medical societies for specialized channels, though the latter faced recent disruptions when Cureus terminated six such channels in 2024 amid allegations of affiliation with paper mills producing fabricated research.^[9] The journal has also retracted dozens of articles—56 documented in early 2024 alone—prompting a short-lived "Wall of Shame" policy naming authors involved in misconduct, which was criticized for risking undue harm to corresponding authors without proportional accountability for co-authors or institutions.^[10]^[11]^[12] These incidents underscore tensions between Cureus's efficiency-driven ethos and the rigorous integrity demands of medical publishing, where empirical validation remains paramount over procedural speed.^[13]

Overview

Founding Principles and Mission

Cureus was established in 2009 by John R. Adler, a neurosurgeon at Stanford University, with the primary objective of removing obstacles to the timely publication and widespread sharing of medical research findings.^[2] ^[1] Originating from a modest setup in the basement of a Stanford School of Medicine building, the platform was conceived as a direct response to the inefficiencies of conventional medical journals, which often impose prolonged review cycles and high entry thresholds that hinder the prompt dissemination of empirical data.^[2] This foundational approach prioritized velocity in publishing over exhaustive pre-publication gatekeeping, enabling authors to share verifiable results without undue delay.^[14] At its core, Cureus's mission centers on democratizing medical knowledge by harnessing web-based technologies to facilitate low-cost, efficient distribution of research across specialties.^[1] The initiative sought to counter the perceived elitism and sluggishness of legacy publishing models, which can restrict access to innovative findings due to resource-intensive processes and selective criteria.^[15] By emphasizing open access and streamlined workflows, Cureus aimed to empower a broader range of researchers—particularly those outside elite institutions—to contribute and engage with scientific literature, thereby fostering a more inclusive ecosystem for evidence-based advancements.^[1] The platform's principles underscore an author-centric model where preparation and initial validation rely heavily on contributors themselves, supplemented by communal scrutiny post-publication rather than protracted editorial vetoes.^[14] This structure reflects a commitment to accelerating the availability of causal insights from clinical and experimental work, positing that empirical evidence should not be bottlenecked by traditional peer review timelines, which may overlook timely, actionable data in favor of perfectionism.^[15] Through these tenets, Cureus positioned itself as a disruptive force in medical publishing, advocating for systemic shifts toward greater transparency and equity in knowledge exchange.^[1]

History

Inception and Early Development (2009-2012)

Cureus traces its origins to 2009, when it was established as PeerEMed by neurosurgeons John R. Adler Jr., an emeritus professor at Stanford University, and Alexander Muacevic, from the University of Munich, in a basement space on Stanford's School of Medicine campus.^[2] The initiative aimed to disrupt traditional medical publishing by creating an open-access platform that prioritized equity, efficiency, and transparency, enabling clinicians—particularly those outside elite academic circles—to share practical insights without the barriers of high costs or protracted review processes.^[16] Initial operations emphasized a web-based system prototyped in informal settings, leveraging Silicon Valley's tech ecosystem to minimize overhead and foster broad participation from global medical professionals.^[15] The platform's early model introduced accelerated pre-publication peer review to expedite dissemination, with submissions undergoing rapid, community-driven evaluation before online posting, contrasting the months-long delays of legacy journals. Publications commenced in 2009, featuring articles primarily in general medical science, supported by DIY submission tools that reduced technical barriers and costs for authors. Revenue initially derived from online advertising, permitting free publication for vetted manuscripts without imposing substantial article processing charges, thereby aligning with the founders' vision of accessible knowledge sharing.^[17] ^[18] Through 2012, PeerEMed refined its infrastructure to handle increasing submissions while maintaining low operational expenses, setting the foundation for scalable open-access medical literature. This period marked the transition toward formalizing innovative features like user-friendly interfaces for peer feedback, which encouraged wider adoption among practicing physicians seeking efficient outlets for evidence-based contributions. The rebranding to Cureus in December 2012 encapsulated these developments, signaling a matured identity focused on credible, rapid scientific exchange.^[2]

Expansion and Maturation (2013-2020)

During this period, Cureus experienced substantial growth in submission volumes and publication output, transitioning from nascent operations to a more established platform for open-access medical literature. In 2014 alone, the journal published 86 articles, reflecting an expansion beyond its early experimental phase and demonstrating increasing adoption by medical researchers seeking rapid dissemination.^[2] This uptick in throughput was facilitated by Cureus's streamlined model, which maintained a median time from submission to publication of approximately 26 days, far shorter than the multi-month delays common in traditional journals reliant on sequential editorial and peer-review processes.^[2] A key milestone enhancing visibility and credibility was the journal's indexing in PubMed Central (PMC) and PubMed, with articles submitted for indexing about two months post-publication.^[19] This integration into major biomedical databases elevated Cureus's role in empirical medical research, as PubMed indexing correlates with higher discoverability and citation potential compared to non-indexed outlets. Indexing status underscored the platform's maturation, enabling broader access to its content amid growing user engagement from a global medical community.^[17] Technological advancements further supported operational scaling, including the refinement of community-driven validation tools. The Scholarly Impact Quotient (SIQ™), a post-publication rating system aggregating reader assessments to gauge article quality and relevance, was supplemented in January 2014 with enhanced sorting and filtering capabilities, allowing users to prioritize content by SIQ scores or other metrics.^[20]^[21] This feature shifted emphasis toward data-informed evaluation, reducing reliance on subjective gatekeeping and aligning with Cureus's mission to democratize peer assessment through crowdsourced input rather than centralized editorial control. By the late 2010s, Cureus had evolved into a multispecialty repository handling diverse topics from neurosurgery to general practice, with publication volumes continuing to rise annually and outpacing many conventional journals' timelines.^[2] These developments solidified its niche in open-access publishing, prioritizing empirical output over prestige-driven selectivity while fostering a user base oriented toward efficient knowledge sharing.

Recent Developments (2021-Present)

In November 2024, Cureus closed six of its "academic channels," specialized low-cost publication streams designed for targeted research dissemination, following reports of potential misuse by organizations linked to paper mills that could select favorable peer reviewers.^[11] This action came amid broader scrutiny of the platform's quality controls, including a September 2024 decision by Web of Science to place Cureus on hold for evaluation of editorial rigor.^[22] In August 2025, Cureus further responded by discontinuing author-suggested peer reviewers to mitigate risks of biased review processes.^[23] To safeguard content integrity against artificial intelligence proliferation, Cureus revised its Terms & Conditions on September 4, 2025, explicitly prohibiting the use of platform content for AI training, fine-tuning, or derivative generation without permission, while enforcing bans on undisclosed AI-generated submissions to prioritize human-driven empirical contributions.^[24]^[25] These measures reflect adaptations to ethical concerns in automated content creation, distinct from permissive stances in some academic outlets. Cureus maintained its focus on expedited publishing amid increasing submission pressures post-2021, with a median time from submission to publication of 26 days as of late 2024, substantially faster than traditional journals' typical 5-8 months from submission to acceptance.^[26]^[2]^[27] This efficiency, enabled by streamlined crowd-sourced review, supported handling elevated volumes during events like the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond, though it drew criticism for potentially compromising depth in favor of speed.^[11]

Publication Model

Submission and Peer Review Process

Articles submitted to Cureus are handled through an online submission system where authors manage their own formatting and adhere to specified guidelines, including language and structure requirements, without mandatory professional editing unless opted for. Upon submission, authors must nominate at least five potential advisers or reviewers with relevant expertise to provide initial feedback, which is non-binding and distinct from formal peer review. Emailed submissions are not accepted and are discarded without review.^[28]^[29] Following submission, articles undergo an initial editorial screening by Cureus staff to check for compliance with submission standards, absence of scientific errors, and lack of fraudulent or dangerous content. If approved, the manuscript advances to single-blind pre-publication peer review, conducted by a minimum of two independent specialists unaffiliated with the authors' institution or organization. Reviewers, anonymized via an automated system (e.g., assigned Greek letters), assess the article for validity, methodological soundness, and critical flaws rather than novelty, impact, or stylistic polish, submitting online comments and a questionnaire often within hours. Authors monitor progress and can invite additional reviewers via their dashboard, with Cureus potentially assigning its own reviewers to ensure at least one independent evaluation.^[28]^[6]^[30] Revisions may be requested based on reviewer feedback addressing empirical or logical deficiencies, with decisions emphasizing merit and transparency over ideological alignment; articles are rejected only if they violate guidelines or contain unverifiable flaws, while valid work proceeds to final associate editor review for readiness. This streamlined process targets publication in 18.8 to 37.6 days from submission, contrasting traditional journals' months-long delays by prioritizing causal knowledge dissemination through accelerated pre-publication validation supplemented by post-publication community input. Platform logs and dashboards provide verifiable transparency into review status and reviewer contributions.^[14]^[31]

Innovative Features and Tools

Cureus employs the Scholarly Impact Quotient (SIQ™), a proprietary post-publication metric that quantifies an article's merit through aggregated votes from verified community members, weighted by their expertise and engagement levels to leverage statistical power for objective assessment.^[21] Launched as a supplement to initial peer review, SIQ enables real-time evaluation of novelty, impact, and quality post-publication, diverging from reliance on journal-level impact factors by focusing on article-specific data including views and expert endorsements.^[21] As of 2023, this tool has been applied across thousands of articles, with higher SIQ scores reflecting sustained community validation.^[1] The platform integrates multimedia capabilities, permitting authors to embed videos, interactive figures, and supplementary datasets directly within articles to convey empirical evidence more comprehensively than text-heavy formats in legacy journals.^[14] These elements support dynamic presentations of clinical data, such as procedural demonstrations or 3D models, enhancing reproducibility and reader comprehension without abstracting key findings.^[28] Crowd-sourced extensions to review occur via SIQ voting and threaded discussions, allowing ongoing scrutiny and refinement by the global medical community after publication, which fosters iterative validation grounded in collective expertise rather than fixed pre-print judgments.^[14] This mechanism, active since Cureus's inception in 2012, processes ratings from cross-specialty users to highlight empirically robust contributions, with platform data showing SIQ as a persistent indicator of article relevance over time.^[21]

Business and Accessibility

Open Access Approach and Costs

Cureus operates under a diamond open access model, granting readers unrestricted, free access to all published articles while waiving mandatory article processing charges (APCs) for authors submitting compliant manuscripts.^[14] This approach eliminates financial barriers at both ends of the publication process, contrasting with hybrid or gold open access journals that impose APCs ranging from $1,500 to $4,000 or higher to cover operational costs.^[14] Authors bear responsibility for producing publication-ready submissions through a "do-it-yourself" (DIY) editing process, which includes formatting, language polishing, and adherence to guidelines; manuscripts exceeding error thresholds require an optional Preferred Editing service averaging $385, a fraction of conventional fees.^[26]^[32] The platform sustains this low-cost structure via operational efficiencies, including crowdsourced peer review by registered medical professionals and streamlined digital workflows that minimize administrative overhead.^[28] Following its acquisition by Springer Nature in December 2022, Cureus maintains its core model without introducing universal APCs, leveraging the parent's resources for scalability while preserving accessibility for independent researchers.^[15] This funding paradigm avoids reliance on author-paid fees, which can deter submissions from under-resourced institutions in developing regions or non-grant-funded clinicians, thereby fostering broader dissemination of empirical medical data unencumbered by paywalls that restrict verification and replication.^[15] Empirical patterns indicate that Cureus's negligible costs correlate with elevated participation rates, enabling over 1 million registered users and tens of thousands of annual publications from global contributors, including those sidelined by high-fee incumbents.^[1] Traditional paywalled or high-APC systems, by prioritizing revenue from subscriptions or charges, often constrain output from resource-limited authors, limiting causal analyses derived from diverse datasets; Cureus counters this by prioritizing volume and verifiability over profit extraction.^[33]

Academic Channels and Partnerships

Cureus Academic Channels serve as specialized, low-cost publication streams designed for academic departments, medical schools, and professional societies to disseminate targeted research efficiently within the journal's open-access framework.^[34] These channels enable institutions to curate and brand content, handling submission volumes through collaborative oversight while maintaining Cureus's rapid peer-review model.^[35] Launched to spotlight institutional scholarly output, they function as dedicated sections that amplify visibility for partners without the overhead of independent journals.^[36] Partnerships with academic entities have included co-branded initiatives, such as the 2020 agreement with seven of Florida's ten medical schools to channel faculty, resident, and student publications through Cureus platforms.^[37] Similar collaborations extend to institutions like the University of Florida College of Medicine–Jacksonville, which established a flagship channel for its outputs, and William Carey University College of Osteopathic Medicine, promoting scholarly endeavors via dedicated streams.^[38]^[39] These arrangements, often verifiable through institutional announcements and channel descriptions, aimed to scale publication capacity while aligning with Cureus's ethos of equitable access and author-driven workflows.^[40] Concerns arose regarding misuse of certain channels by non-academic or questionable organizations, which allegedly exploited hand-picked reviewer privileges to bypass rigorous scrutiny, echoing broader paper mill infiltration patterns in high-volume journals.^[11] In response, Cureus terminated six academic channels in November 2024, targeting those implicated in integrity lapses to restore trust in partnered streams.^[11] Subsequent measures included suspending author-suggested peer reviewers across the platform in August 2025, aiming to mitigate collusion risks and enforce centralized editorial controls.^[23] Retained channels continue under enhanced curator guidelines, requiring adherence to Cureus standards for scope and quality.^[34]

Indexing and Metrics

Abstracting and Indexing Services

Cureus, launched in 2009, has been cataloged in the National Library of Medicine (NLM) since that year, enabling its articles to be indexed in PubMed upon meeting eligibility criteria for biomedical literature.^[17] This inclusion facilitates discoverability of the journal's empirical medical content within PubMed Central (PMC) for open-access articles, as confirmed by the publisher.^[26] Articles are selectively indexed based on NLM's quality standards, with Cureus emphasizing rapid dissemination while complying with these requirements.^[41] The journal achieved inclusion in Clarivate's Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) within the Web of Science platform, marking broader recognition for citation tracking.^[9] This status led to Cureus receiving its inaugural Journal Impact Factor of 1.2, calculated from 2022 citation data and released in June 2023.^[42] However, in September 2024, Clarivate initiated a re-evaluation of Cureus against its indexing criteria, suspending the addition of new content to Web of Science during the review process.^[22] Prior to this, the journal's focus on accelerated peer review and volume over traditional prestige metrics had delayed entry into high-impact citation reports like Journal Citation Reports, which some analyses critique for vulnerability to gaming through self-citation or selective coverage.^[8]

Performance Indicators and Scholarly Impact

Cureus publishes a high volume of articles annually, with Peeref reporting an annual article volume of 17,836 as of recent data. This output positions it as a mega-journal, facilitating rapid dissemination across medical specialties. The platform's median time from submission to publication is 26 days, enabling quicker access to research compared to traditional journals that often exceed several months.^[43]^[1] To assess scholarly impact beyond contested metrics like journal impact factors—which Cureus critiques for biases toward established outlets—the platform utilizes the Scholarly Impact Quotient (SIQ), a post-publication rating derived from community upvotes weighted by statistical power to gauge article importance. While direct correlations between SIQ scores and external citations remain under evaluation, Cureus tracks alternative indicators such as article promotions, which show a 47.7% citation rate among promoted works versus lower rates for non-promoted ones. Engagement metrics further proxy influence, with approximately 6.3 million average monthly reads reported, reflecting substantial visibility and potential clinical reach.^[21]^[44]^[1] Retraction rates provide another empirical benchmark for integrity. Since Springer Nature's acquisition in 2021, Cureus has retracted 125 articles, with 77 attributed to author issues such as fake or unverified data. Given the journal's scale—cumulatively exceeding hundreds of thousands of publications—this equates to a retraction index below 0.1% in recent years, aligning with or below rates in peer mega-journals, though heightened scrutiny via databases like Retraction Watch has prompted process adjustments, including halting author-suggested reviewers in 2025. Download and view statistics underscore real-world dissemination, serving as causal proxies for practice impact absent comprehensive citation delays; monthly reads in the millions suggest broad accessibility influencing frontline medical decision-making.^[23]^[45]

Reception and Controversies

Achievements and Positive Reception

Cureus has demonstrated notable success in accelerating the publication of medical research, with an average time to first decision of 48 hours and time to publication of 26 days, enabling rapid dissemination of empirical findings during urgent scenarios such as the COVID-19 pandemic.^[3] This efficiency contrasts with traditional journals' longer timelines, allowing clinicians and researchers to share time-sensitive data on disease mechanisms, treatments, and outcomes more promptly; for instance, Cureus hosted numerous peer-reviewed articles on COVID-19 topics, including epidemiological analyses and intervention studies, contributing to accessible evidence amid global health crises.^[46]^[3] The journal's impact metrics underscore its growing scholarly influence, including an initial Impact Factor of 1.2 awarded in June 2023—the first for Cureus—rising to 1.3 by July 2025, driven by a 30% increase in article citations.^[42]^[47] It has amassed over 125,000 citations, 6.3 million monthly reads, and 1.2 million monthly readers, reflecting broad engagement with its open-access content.^[3] Acquisition by Springer Nature in December 2022 further validated its innovative model, which prioritizes quality alongside speed through tech-driven peer review.^[15] Authors and reviewers have praised Cureus for its equitable and streamlined process, particularly benefiting early-career researchers by providing accessible entry points to peer-reviewed publishing and learning opportunities via reviewer training.^[48]^[49] Low publication costs—averaging $385 with 31-33% of articles free—enhance inclusivity, enabling greater participation from non-Western and resource-limited researchers and fostering a diverse global author base.^[42]^[3] This approach challenges conventional gatekeeping, as evidenced by its diverse editorial board and worldwide reviewer pool, promoting broader representation in medical literature.^[50]^[3]

Criticisms of Quality and Integrity

Critics of Cureus have highlighted its peer review process as potentially lenient, characterized by rapid timelines and, until August 2025, reliance on author-suggested reviewers, which allowed insufficient independent scrutiny compared to the multi-round evaluations typical in established medical journals.^[23] This model has been linked to cases where articles with evident flaws, such as methodological weaknesses or unverified data, proceeded to publication without adequate preemptive detection, as evidenced by post hoc retractions for issues like falsified peer reviews or manipulated results.^[23] The platform's high submission and publication volume—facilitated by low barriers and crowd-sourced elements—has drawn comparisons to predatory publishing dynamics, though analyses confirm Cureus evades formal predatory classification under criteria like those refined from Jeffrey Beall's original list, due to its legitimate indexing and non-deceptive practices.^[11] Nonetheless, the scale amplifies risks of diluted oversight, with empirical indicators including 125 retractions since Springer Nature's 2021 acquisition, 77 tied to author misconduct such as fake data or affiliations, pointing to causal gaps in upfront integrity checks that permitted flawed outputs to enter the literature initially.^[23] External analyses and researcher forums have documented persistent publication of lower-caliber work, including case reports with limited novelty or rigor, undermining confidence in the platform's average scholarly reliability despite its post-publication metrics like the Scholarly Impact Quotient.^[8] Such critiques emphasize that expedited, high-throughput review prioritizes accessibility over stringent quality gates, potentially eroding causal validity in disseminated medical findings.^[10]

Specific Controversies and Responses

In October 2024, Cureus reversed its initial decision to retract the article "Atypical Histiocytic Neoplasm Presenting as a Calvarial Mass," published on February 24, 2024, after concerns were raised about plagiarism, factual inaccuracies, and publication by non-specialists in a rare condition.^[51] ^[52] The journal's editor-in-chief had cited these issues, including unverified claims about the neoplasm's classification, but following an internal review of evidence submitted by the authors, Cureus upheld the publication without retraction or notice, leaving the article uncited in Web of Science as of that date.^[51] Critics contended this decision perpetuated errors in the medical literature on histiocytic disorders, potentially misleading clinicians due to the article's diagnostic assertions beyond the authors' expertise.^[51] In November 2024, Cureus closed six of its "academic channels"—low-cost publication platforms targeted at specific institutions or regions—in direct response to allegations from Retraction Watch and co-investigators that these facilitated paper mill operations, including fabricated authorship and low-quality submissions.^[11] The closures, announced on November 21, 2024, affected channels previously defended by Cureus as democratizing access but identified through pattern analysis as sources of anomalous publication volumes and authorship irregularities.^[11] Platform logs indicated prior proactive interventions, such as authorship verifications and removal of over 125 papers since Springer Nature's acquisition, with 77 tied to verified or suspected fraud, underscoring ongoing monitoring amid high submission volumes exceeding 100,000 annually.^[11]^[23] Cureus has rebutted broader integrity critiques by highlighting its Scholarly Impact Quotient (SIQ) system, a post-publication peer-scoring mechanism that aggregates reader evaluations to dynamically assess article merit, as a transparent alternative to opaque pre-publication gatekeeping.^[26] This approach, per journal policy, prioritizes corrections and retractions for verifiable errors over preemptive exclusion, with SIQ enabling rapid community feedback to isolate low-quality work without suppressing volume-driven innovation.^[53] While retraction instances, such as 56 papers in January 2024 linked to faked Saudi affiliations, reflect active error detection, Cureus maintains these rates—relative to its scale—are mitigated by SIQ-driven visibility of flaws, fostering self-correction over traditional models prone to entrenched biases in reviewer selection.^[54]^[55]

Broader Impact

Influence on Medical Publishing Landscape

Cureus pioneered an accelerated publication model in medical journals by implementing a streamlined single-blinded pre-publication peer review process augmented by post-publication community scoring via its Scholarly Impact Quotient (SIQ), achieving a median submission-to-publication time of 26 days.^[1] This contrasts sharply with traditional journals' typical delays of several months, driven by rigorous but protracted selectivity aimed at bolstering prestige and impact factors.^[56] By prioritizing rapid dissemination of credible research—publishing over 32,000 articles since its 2012 launch—Cureus has disrupted status quo inefficiencies, causally incentivizing authors to favor speed for timely clinical relevance and compelling legacy publishers to experiment with fast-track options amid competitive pressures.^[7]^[57] As a gold open access platform that charges no article processing fees for well-drafted submissions while requiring minimal editing costs only when necessary, Cureus has advanced the normalization of immediate, barrier-free access to medical literature.^[26] This model critiques traditional subscription-based systems, where revenue dependence on high-prestige outlets fosters rejection of replicable but less novel findings in favor of sensational results that drive citations and subscriptions.^[57] Cureus's emphasis on broad dissemination over exclusivity highlights how such profit motives causally impede knowledge equity, particularly for clinicians lacking grant funding, thereby shifting paradigms toward equitable open access as a standard rather than exception.^[7] Cureus's hybrid review approach—initial expert vetting followed by open SIQ feedback—has intensified debates on peer review's foundational validity, underscoring traditional models' limitations in error detection despite their gatekeeping role.^[1] Broader empirical analyses reveal that conventional closed peer review frequently overlooks major methodological flaws, with error rates persisting across systems, prompting scrutiny of whether accelerated, community-augmented methods like Cureus's better align with collective intelligence for post-hoc refinement over preemptive exclusion.^[58] This has encouraged causal reevaluation of review paradigms, favoring transparency and scalability to mitigate biases inherent in small-reviewer pools reliant on subjective novelty assessments.^[7]

Empirical Evidence of Outcomes

Cureus's Journal Impact Factor rose to 1.3 in 2025, marking a 30% increase from 1.0, attributed to expanded article citations amid its high-volume output of over 71,000 publications.^[47] ^[59] Despite this growth, citation distribution remains uneven, with approximately 40% of articles garnering zero citations, highlighting strengths in niche, rapidly disseminated empirical findings but limitations in broad scholarly influence compared to traditional journals.^[59] The platform's average submission-to-publication time of 33 days facilitates quicker knowledge sharing, particularly for time-sensitive clinical observations, though this expedited process correlates with variable post-publication scrutiny.^[42] Retraction data reveal challenges in maintaining uniform quality, with Cureus recording 99 retractions following its 2016 acquisition by Springer Nature, including clusters tied to methodological flaws and data integrity issues.^[60] These incidents prompted Clarivate to suspend Cureus from Web of Science indexing in September 2024, citing persistent concerns over article scope adherence and editorial oversight, which elevated its retraction visibility relative to lower-volume legacy journals.^[22] Empirical comparisons indicate Cureus's retraction index aligns with broader trends in open-access mega-journals, where higher throughput amplifies absolute numbers but rates per publication do not exceed those in high-impact fields like anesthesiology (2.59 retractions per 1,000 articles).^[61] Corrective actions, including post-publication peer voting via the Scholarly Impact Quotient, have mitigated some errors but underscore the trade-offs of decentralized review against rigorous pre-screening in established outlets.^[8] Author-centric metrics suggest advantages in accessibility and efficiency, enabling free publication for over 31% of 2022 submissions and drawing contributions from diverse global regions, which fosters research equity by lowering barriers for non-elite institutions.^[42] ^[50] Limited formal surveys exist, but qualitative feedback from platforms like ResearchGate indicates high satisfaction with rapid timelines and PubMed indexing, contrasting with delays in prestige-driven journals that may suppress emerging voices from low-resource settings.^[9] Longitudinally, Cureus's model has democratized output—evidenced by 40.5 million article views in 2022—while misuse remains infrequent relative to scandals in conventional publishing, such as pervasive citation cartels or undisclosed conflicts in top-tier venues.^[42] This net effect promotes causal dissemination of practical, field-level evidence over prestige-filtered narratives, though sustained monitoring of correction frequencies is essential to validate equity gains against quality risks.^[61]

References

[1]
Online Medical Journal | Open Access | About Us | Cureus
Cureus is an open access, online, multispecialty medical journal published by Springer Nature, aiming to eliminate barriers to medical knowledge.About Publishing · FAQs · Partnerships
[2]
Understanding Cureus: An Introduction to the Journal
Oct 31, 2024 · The Cureus Journal of Medical Science was started in 2009 in the basement of a building on Stanford's School of Medicine campus.
[3]
The Cureus Journal of Medical Science: Peer-Reviewed, Open Access
The Cureus Journal of Medical Science is a Springer Nature journal with an Impact Factor of 1.3, over 125,000 citations and counting, and features new methods ...Sign In · Author Guide · FAQs · About Us
[4]
Silicon Valley-based medical journal, Cureus, acquired by Springer ...
Dec 7, 2022 · Founded in Silicon Valley in 2009, Cureus has designed a unique, highly efficient, OA publishing platform. Well-drafted, relevant and credible ...
[5]
A Cureus Impact Factor? - CapeRay blog
Jul 7, 2023 · The Cureus Journal of Medical Science has been awarded its very first Impact Factor (IF) – an impressive achievement that we're proud to share with you.<|separator|>
[6]
Peer Review Medical Articles | Review Research | Cureus
Cureus provides a hassle-free peer review process empowering you to review the article and submit your comments online, often in just a few hours.
[7]
A new age of peer reviewed scientific journals - PMC - NIH
Nov 27, 2012 · The principles of peer reviewed scientific publications date back two and one-half centuries to the origins of Medical Essays and Observations published by the ...
[8]
Cureus, its reviewing, and its “Scholarly Impact Quotient”
Aug 24, 2023 · Cureus is a signer of DORA – the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment – and does not promote the use of journal impact factors.” I ...
[9]
Cureus publications? Worth it or just a waste of time - ResearchGate
Aug 4, 2020 · Cureus is an PubMed indexed and Emerging Science Citation (ESCI) index journal. I disagree completely that it is a predatory or unreliable journal.
[10]
Haste Makes Retractions at Cureus - The Geyser
Jan 30, 2024 · Recently, Retraction Watch wrote about 56 retractions at Cureus, an OA medical science journal we've discussed before.
[11]
Mega journal Cureus kicks out organizations critics called paper mills
Nov 21, 2024 · The embattled mega journal Cureus has closed six of its so-called “academic channels,” which it bills as low-cost publication platforms.
[12]
Journal concedes 'Wall of Shame' could cause 'unjust' harm
Apr 25, 2022 · Cureus founder says name-and-shame policy could cause hardship but is justified by threat to patient safety from fraud.
[13]
Journal publishes list of authors whose articles have been retracted ...
The criticism is partly related to the criteria adopted by the Cureus to select which scientists should be named and shamed. Only the corresponding authors of ...
[14]
Medical Publishing | Submit Research Articles | Cureus
Cureus is on a mission to eliminate the barriers to the generation and dissemination of medical knowledge via rapid publishing. A major aspect of this mission ...Missing: statement democratize
[15]
Innovative Silicon Valley-based medical journal, Cureus, becomes ...
Dec 7, 2022 · Founded in Silicon Valley in 2009, Cureus has designed a unique, highly efficient, OA publishing platform. Well-drafted, relevant and ...Missing: basement | Show results with:basement
[16]
Cureus Conversations: Q&A With Editor in Chief Dr. John Adler
Oct 5, 2021 · What motivated you to start the Cureus Journal of Medical Science? ... Cureus Conversations: Q&A With Cureus Co-Founder Alex Muacevic ...Missing: launch | Show results with:launch
[17]
101596737 - NLM Catalog Result - NCBI - NIH
Title Abbreviation: Cureus Title(s): Curēus. Publication Start Year: 2009 Publication End Year: Frequency: Irregular Country of Publication: United States ...
[18]
Springer Nature Acquires Medical Journal 'Cureus'
Dec 7, 2022 · “Our new relationship will further strengthen our efforts to be the fastest, lowest cost, often free, open-access medical journal in the world, ...
[19]
Q: Are Cureus papers indexed on PubMed?
Apr 6, 2025 · Yes! Cureus is indexed in PubMed Central (PMC), PubMed and Google Scholar. Articles are submitted for PMC indexing two months after publication in Cureus.
[20]
January 2014 – The Cureus Blog
Jan 28, 2014 · We've added a powerful Sort and Filter feature – would you like to quickly find those articles with the highest SIQ score? No problem. How about ...
[21]
SIQ™ (Scholarly Impact Quotient™) | Unique Rating | Cureus
SIQ™ is designed to supplement our pre-publication peer review process and allows authors to receive immediate, valuable reader feedback without the ...Missing: date | Show results with:date
[22]
Web of Science puts mega-journals Cureus and Heliyon on hold
Sep 30, 2024 · My manuscript has been accepted on 23 October 2024 in Heliyon Journal and was pubished online and in Science Direct. Now awaiting to be indexed ...
[23]
Embattled journal Cureus halts peer reviewer suggestions
Aug 29, 2025 · In November of last year, Cureus closed six of its “channels” after we reported that they were allowing questionable organizations to hand-pick ...
[24]
Cureus Updates Terms & Conditions to Prohibit AI Use - PR Newswire
Sep 4, 2025 · Cureus has updated its Terms & Conditions to explicitly prohibit the use of site content by artificial intelligence systems, including: Training ...
[25]
New AI Restrictions in Our Terms & Conditions | Cureus
We've updated our Terms & Conditions to explicitly restrict the use of Cureus content by artificial intelligence systems, including use for ...Missing: September | Show results with:September
[26]
FAQs | Open Access Medical Journal Questions | Cureus
Cureus accepts original articles, review articles, technical reports, case reports, and editorials from over 60 recognized medical specialties.Missing: 2009 basement
[27]
Evaluation of Issues Affecting Time Between Study Completion ...
Mar 15, 2022 · The search was performed from April 2021 to June 2021. Variables analyzed were indexing of the journal, publication fees, level of impact factor ...
[28]
Medical Journal Articles | Publish Research | Cureus
The Cureus Journal of Medical Science is an Open Access, multispecialty, online-only medical journal owned by Springer Nature. Cureus was founded with a ...The Cureus Journal of Medical... · Cureus Guides · Publication Process Overview
[29]
https://www.cureus.com/author_guide#!/author-instructions/submitting-an-article
[30]
https://www.cureus.com/author_guide#!/policies-and-procedures/single-blinded-peer-review
[31]
https://www.cureus.com/author_guide#!/overview/step-by-step-overview
[32]
Q: What is the cost to publish my work on Cureus?
Feb 24, 2025 · Publishing with Cureus is 100% free as long as the submission complies with all Cureus editorial guidelines.
[33]
Publishing with Cureus: What is the process really like? - Medium
Feb 28, 2021 · However, my entire Cureus experience, from submission to publication, only took about a month. Pricing was very reasonable. Weighing the reality ...
[34]
Medical Research Organizations | Cureus Channels
The efficient, low-cost publication platform that every academic department, med school and medical society needs. ... Cureus Channels shine a powerful spotlight ...Cureus Channels GuideMed-Peds Academic ChannelMedical Society of Delaware ...Florida Atlantic UniversityChannel logo
[35]
Academic Channels for Low-Cost Research Publication | Cureus ...
Step into a new era of publishing with our low-cost and efficient platform that meets the demands of academic departments, schools, and professional ...
[36]
Cureus Channels Guide
Cureus channels are a branded section of the Cureus Journal of Medical Science devoted to highlighting and promoting the scholarly output of channel ...
[37]
Florida medical schools partner with Cureus to publish their medical ...
Apr 15, 2020 · Majority of Florida's medical schools (7 out of 10) will direct their faculty, residents and students to publish their research in Cureus.
[38]
UFCOM–J Cureus Channel | College of Medicine – Jacksonville
The University of Florida College of Medicine – Jacksonville has purchased an academic Flagship Channel through Cureus Journal of Medical Science.
[39]
William Carey University College of Osteopathic Medicine Scholarly ...
This channel represents a partnership with the Cureus Journal of Medicine (www.Cureus.com) and promotes academic and scholarship endeavors.
[40]
Howard University Internal Medicine - Cureus
This academic channel was founded in 2022 to promote the field of internal medicine as a specialty. With broad support from internal medicine leaders across ...<|separator|>
[41]
Partnerships - The Cureus Journal of Medical Science
Cureus is indexed in PubMed, a free search engine accessing primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics.Missing: date | Show results with:date
[42]
Cureus Impact Factor Announcement
Jun 30, 2023 · The Cureus Journal of Medical Science has been awarded its first Impact Factor (IF). This is a noteworthy achievement for our community, and we are proud to ...
[43]
Cureus Journal of Medical Science - Peeref
Country/Area of Publication. -. Publisher. -. Publication Frequency. -. Year Publication Started. -. Annual Article Volume. 17836. Self-citation. 7.70%. Gold OA ...
[44]
Cureus February 2024 Newsletter
Feb 13, 2024 · We recently discovered a significant correlation between Article Promotions and citations: 47.7% of promoted articles are cited by other ...
[45]
Journal Retraction Rates and Citation Metrics: An Ouroboric ...
Nov 18, 2020 · The ImpFac of each journal was obtained from the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) 2020 list (Clarivariate Analytics). For those journals that were ...Missing: inclusion | Show results with:inclusion
[46]
An Epidemiological Study on COVID-19: A Rapidly Spreading Disease
Mar 19, 2020 · Overall. The total number of COVID-19 cases as of March 14, 2020, is 156,622, spread across 154 countries worldwide (Figure 1).Missing: dissemination | Show results with:dissemination
[47]
July 2025 Newsletter - The Cureus Journal of Medical Science
Jul 11, 2025 · With an average time to first decision of 48 hours and a median time to publication of 26 days, Cureus delivers unmatched speed and visibility ...
[48]
New Author Resources For Publishing Academic Articles | Cureus
The New Authors Hub provides resources for first-time academic authors, including advice from Cureus editors, and helps them reach real readers.Academic Writing Resources... · Learning Materials & Other... · Medical Research Writing...Missing: sources | Show results with:sources
[49]
Cureus publications? Worth it or just a waste of time - Page 2
Aug 4, 2020 · It is a good journal for emerging scholars, and for someone who wants to learn something from peer review experiences.Missing: achievements reception
[50]
Cureus Journals: Pioneering Equity in Research Publishing
May 25, 2025 · Cureus Journals are Springer Nature's latest launch into the Inclusive publishing landscape. Backed by an expert editorial board from diverse ...Missing: reach | Show results with:reach
[51]
After saying it would retract an article, Cureus changed its mind
Oct 8, 2024 · Having said this, I believe the first decision by Cureus was wrong, and they are right by not retracting the paper. Behind this, I can see two ...
[52]
Atypical Histiocytic Neoplasm Presenting as a Calvarial Mass | Cureus
Feb 24, 2024 · Histiocytic disorders are a wide range of disorders arising from abnormal proliferation and infiltration of dendritic cells.
[53]
publishing with cureus
From its inception, Cureus was designed to minimize the role of politics in scientific publishing by way of its post-publication SIQ scoring process.
[54]
Journal retracts more than 50 studies from Saudi Arabia for faked ...
Jan 26, 2024 · The journal Cureus has retracted 56 papers nearly two years after it first began to suspect the works were of dubious lineage.
[55]
https://www.cureusjournals.com/journal/engineering/guide#!/policies-and-procedures/retraction-policy
[56]
Factors associated with publication speed in general medical journals
Mar 9, 2019 · We found that the overall median acceptance, publication and total delay times were respectively 123, 68 and 224 days. We also found that, in ...Methods · Results · Discussion
[57]
Innovative Silicon Valley-based medical journal, Cureus, becomes part of Springer Nature as company expands its health division | Springer Nature Group | Springer Nature
### Summary of Cureus's Innovative Model and Impact on Publishing Challenges
[58]
Peer review: concepts, variants and controversies - PubMed Central
Open peer review. Open peer review aims to overcome the shortcomings of the traditional closed peer review model. Just as peer review became practical only ...Missing: comparing Cureus
[59]
Cureus | exaly.com
Based on the citation analysis of 71,365 articles Cureus has published so far, 40% of its articles have received no citation at all.
[60]
A new journal record: Sage title retracts 678 more papers, tally over ...
Apr 17, 2025 · Cureus has had 99 retractions since Springer Nature acquired them. ... another way to look at it, there are journals with higher retraction rates.
[61]
Journal Retraction Rates and Citation Metrics - PubMed Central - NIH
Nov 18, 2020 · The retraction index was 2.59 for anesthesiology, 0.66 for neurosurgery and 0.75 for the high-impact clinical journals group.Results · Table 1. Anesthesia Journals... · Discussion