LAUSR

On behalf of the Editorial Committee members, I am pleased to report that the Journal of Prosthodontic Research (JPR) received an updated Journal Impact Factor of 4.338 in the June 2022 release of the Journal Citation ReportsTM (ClarivateTM). JPR now ranks 14th out of 92 journals in the “dentistry, oral surgery & medicine” category. It is worth noting that JPR ranked in the top 25% of its category (Q1) over a 6-year period. I would like to thank all authors, reviewers, and the current and past editorial team members who contributed to JPR and made this a big step toward its ascension as a worldwide firstclass dental journal. As editor-in-chief, I hope that JPR continues to grow as a leading journal toward a new scientific frontier in prosthodontics [1]. Simultaneously, I believe that achieving high journal metrics and rankings is not the highest priority. We should bear in mind that what fundamentally matters is how much our journal can really contribute to the development of prosthodontics and dental professionals. I hope the JPR will continue to evolve in step with the global prosthodontic community, becoming a respected international asset with strong leadership [2]. Based on this concept, the JPR Editorial Committee recognizes the importance of leadership for further growth of the JPR, and the editor-in-chief takes charge of leadership empowerment. I am committed to providing better academic leadership to the editorial team. We also believe that the leadership capability of JPR stakeholders should be a key component of individual and community growth in the prosthodontic field to promote prosthodontic research worldwide. For instance, corresponding authors (principal investigators) need to set the direction of the research, build a successful team with an inspiring vision, and create something new by motivating team members to act toward achieving their goal of publishing their articles. This cannot be accomplished without leadership capability. Therefore, we believe that it is appropriate to incorporate elements of leadership education into JPR. Accordingly, we invited Prof. Sreenivas Koka, an editorial board member of the JPR and an expert in leadership education, to the guest editorship to curate articles in the leadership series in the Guest Editorial section. The first article of this exciting series has been launched in this issue by Janokar et al. [3], providing detailed instructive information regarding basic leadership principles and a process to build a successful research unit, regardless of the size and location of the program. We hope you enjoy reading it, and you are excited as we are for the series of coming articles. This issue of JPR addresses a variety of topics, particularly regarding elderly people, including a study to develop a simple screening test for mastication [4], image analysis to clarify the effects of food particle loss on the evaluation of masticatory ability [5], and finding an association between abnormal masticatory movement and oral/physical function, possibly influenced by central motor control [6]. Interestingly, Padmanabhan et al. [7] observed superior sensory feedback and improved cognitive performance in edentulous patients with implant-retained overdentures compared with those with conventional complete dentures. Many Asian countries are now facing a rapidly aging population, where partially edentate patients are increasing in incidence with frailty, cognitive impairment, and multiple chronic diseases [8]. In the context of Japan’s long history as the world’s most aged society, the Japan Prosthodontic Society (JPS) has had the slogan of “A long life built by mastication and occlusion [9]” for many years. Accordingly, JPR, as an official journal of JPS, would like to take on the leadership of these research fields as one of the most targeted topics. This issue of the journal also includes an interesting article by Takaoka et al. [10] describing the possible association of palmoplantar pustulosis with metal allergies and periodontal disease. Allergic reactions to dental materials occur not only intraorally but also in unrelated parts of the body. In addition, chronic dental inflammation has recently been suspected to be associated with some types of dermatitis in extraoral lesions, suggesting the increasing importance of medical-dental cooperation. Considering the fact that many patients are exposed to metal alloys by prosthodontic treatments, we prosthodontists should take the lead in understanding and elucidating dental metal allergies in dermatitis. Again, I thank all of you for your continued support of JPR, which I anticipate will provide us with further unprecedented growth.