ESMO Real World Data and Digital Oncology

About ESMO Real World Data and Digital Oncology

Overview

ESMO Real World Data and Digital Oncology is a peer-reviewed, gold open-access journal of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO), published by Elsevier. Launched in November 2023, it is the newest addition to ESMO's journal portfolio, joining the society's flagship Annals of Oncology and its broad-scope open-access title ESMO Open. The journal is dedicated to publishing high-quality data science and educational content on the transformation of oncology care through real-world evidence and digital technologies that physicians can trust and understand.

The journal's premise is straightforward: randomized clinical trials, for all their rigor, answer narrow questions in selected populations, while most cancer care happens outside trials — in clinics, registries, claims databases, wearable devices, and patient-reported outcome systems. ESMO Real World Data and Digital Oncology exists to make that wider world of evidence scientifically legible: publishing innovative research that provides actionable insights from real-world data sources and digital devices, from generalizable observational and health-services research to clinical informatics solutions, algorithm-powered diagnostics, decision-support systems, and direct-to-patient mobile applications.

The founding Editor-in-Chief is Dr. Rodrigo Dienstmann, Principal Investigator of the Oncology Data Science (ODysSey) group at the Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO) in Barcelona and Medical Director of the Oncoclínicas Precision Medicine and Big Data Lab in Brazil. His appointment was announced on 14 July 2023. Under his editorship the journal speaks deliberately to practicing oncologists — "using language that connects with practicing oncologists who are at the nexus of real-world data and clinical informatics" — while also serving industry, regulators, and policymakers with an interest in digital oncology.

History and Position in the ESMO Portfolio

ESMO, the European Society for Medical Oncology, is one of the world's leading professional organizations for medical oncology, and its journals are among the most cited in the field. Annals of Oncology, the society's flagship, publishes high-impact clinical and translational research; ESMO Open covers the full breadth of oncology disciplines as an online-only open-access title; Immuno-Oncology and Technology serves the immuno-oncology community; and newer launches — ESMO Gastrointestinal Oncology and ESMO Rare Cancers — address defined disease areas.

ESMO Real World Data and Digital Oncology fills a different gap: methodology and data-source innovation. Rather than organizing around a tumor type or a treatment modality, it organizes around how evidence is generated — real-world data, digital health technologies, and the data-science methods that turn routine-care information into clinical knowledge. The journal's first volume appeared in November 2023, and it has published quarterly since, with articles released as they become available and compiled into issues.

The launch timing was deliberate. By 2023, regulators on both sides of the Atlantic were formalizing the role of real-world evidence in drug approval and post-marketing surveillance, health systems were digitizing at pace, and artificial intelligence was moving from conference demonstrations into clinical workflows. ESMO's answer was a journal that would set methodological standards for this evidence — including, notably, the ESMO Guidance for Reporting Oncology real-World evidence (GROW), published in Annals of Oncology, which gives authors a framework for reporting real-world evidence studies that this journal's editors expect contributors to know.

Aims and Scope

The journal publishes high-quality data science and educational content on the transformation of oncology care with real-world evidence and digital technologies. Its scope spans the full pipeline from data to decision: disease characterization using routine-care data; studies of rare and under-represented populations in clinical trials; head-to-head comparative effectiveness research; analyses of unmet needs and gaps in access or care delivery; resource utilization and health economics; post-marketing treatment optimization and tolerability; and patients' outcomes and preferences, including patient-reported outcomes.

On the digital side, the journal covers clinical informatics solutions, algorithm-powered diagnostics, decision-support systems, direct-to-patient mobile applications, and computational oncology — alongside critical examination of the human-machine interface: how AI applications affect the relationship between patient and physician, and how the human aspect of medicine is preserved as technology enters routine practice. Studies evaluating the net benefit of incorporating artificial intelligence into clinical practice are explicitly in scope, as is balanced implementation guidance, training, and resources to ensure appropriate use of real-world data and digital technologies at the highest methodological standards.

The journal's topic list, as described by its publisher, includes health-services research, post-marketing commitments and requirements, comparative effectiveness and drug tolerability in real life, clinico-genomics databases, patient-reported outcomes, decision-support systems, computational oncology, and human–machine interaction. Special issues have sharpened the focus further: recent collections include Artificial Intelligence in Clinical Oncology (guest-edited by Dr. Rodrigo Dienstmann and Prof. Dr. Jakob Nikolas Kather) and Cancer Registries for High-quality Real-World Data (guest-edited by Dr. Otto Visser, Dr. Rodrigo Dienstmann, Dr. Vesna Zadnik, and Dr. Harlinde De Schutter), the latter inviting contributions on advances and challenges in cancer-registry data with a submission deadline of 30 May 2026.

What the Journal Publishes

The journal publishes original research, reviews, editorials, perspectives, correspondence, and news. Original research articles are the core: observational studies, registry analyses, comparative-effectiveness studies, health-services research, validation studies of digital tools and algorithms, and implementation studies of informatics interventions. Reviews synthesize fast-moving areas — for example, the state of digital-health adoption among oncology professionals, or the evidence base for electronic patient-reported outcome monitoring. Editorials and perspectives give leading voices room to argue about where the field should go, while correspondence keeps debates alive after publication.

What distinguishes a strong submission here is methodological seriousness about real-world data. Reviewers will probe the data source (registry, electronic health record, claims, wearable, patient-reported), the handling of confounding and missing data, the transportability of findings beyond the source population, and the clinical actionability of the conclusions. Authors working with real-world evidence should consult the ESMO-GROW reporting guidance before writing, since it articulates exactly the standards the oncology community now expects: clear description of data sources and linkage, explicit handling of bias, and conclusions calibrated to what observational data can actually support.

Publication Details

As a gold open-access journal with no subscription charges, the journal's publication costs are covered by article publishing charges paid by authors, their institutions, or their funders. The APC of USD 3,480 (excluding taxes) applies to all article types. ESMO members serving as corresponding authors receive a 40 percent discount, and Elsevier automatically applies waivers or discounts for articles whose authors are all based in countries eligible for the Research4Life program. Authors should also check whether their institution has an open-access agreement with Elsevier, which may cover the charge in full. After acceptance, authors needing to comply with funder policies can apply for a CC BY licence.

Editorial Leadership and Peer Review

The journal is led by Editor-in-Chief Dr. Rodrigo Dienstmann, whose research program sits exactly at the journal's intersection: oncology data science, clinico-genomics, and the translation of real-world data into clinical decisions. He leads the Oncology Data Science (ODysSey) group at VHIO in Barcelona and serves as Medical Director of the Oncoclínicas Precision Medicine and Big Data Lab in Brazil. He is supported by an international editorial board of experts and key opinion leaders in real-world evidence, digital health, and oncology — the breadth the journal needs, given that its submissions range from registry epidemiology to machine-learning validation studies.

Peer review follows Elsevier's standard processes for its journals, with manuscripts evaluated by reviewers chosen for expertise in the relevant methods and clinical domain. Given the journal's emphasis on methodological rigor, authors should expect scrutiny of study design, data provenance, statistical analysis, and the match between claims and evidence — the same standards the ESMO-GROW guidance codifies for the field. Third-party aggregators describe the review model as double-anonymous peer review; authors should confirm the current model in the journal's guide for authors at submission.

Indexing and Abstracting

The journal is listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), and its full text is available through PubMed Central from Volume 1 (2023) — a strong early indexing achievement for a journal launched in late 2023, since PubMed Central inclusion makes articles discoverable through PubMed searches. Library catalogues record the journal's ISSN 2949-8201, quarterly frequency, and 2023 start date, and its articles are distributed through ScienceDirect, Elsevier's publishing platform.

Third-party journal-metric aggregators additionally report Web of Science coverage for the title. Authors who need confirmed indexing in a specific database for promotion, grant, or institutional reporting purposes should verify current coverage directly in that database, since indexing portfolios for young journals can change. The journal's DOI registration through Elsevier's systems and its presence on ScienceDirect give its articles the standard technical foundations for citation tracking.

Metrics

As a journal launched in November 2023, ESMO Real World Data and Digital Oncology is young by citation-metric standards, and no Impact Factor or CiteScore is officially published on the journal's own pages at the time of writing. Third-party metric aggregators have begun reporting figures — one aggregator reports an Impact Factor of 2.6 following the June 2026 Journal Citation Reports release — but these are third-party reported figures, not officially verified here, and authors should confirm any metric in Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate) or Scopus (Elsevier) directly before citing it. What is verifiable is the journal's institutional weight: it is an official ESMO journal, published by Elsevier, led by a recognized data-science oncologist, and indexed in DOAJ and PubMed Central within its first years.

Submission Guidance

Manuscripts are submitted through Elsevier's online submission system, linked from the journal's homepage at esmorwd.org and from its ScienceDirect journal page. Before submitting, authors should read the guide for authors carefully — paying particular attention to article-type definitions, word and figure limits, and data-availability expectations, which are stringent for a journal built around real-world data.

A competitive submission typically includes: a clear statement of the data source and study population; explicit description of data linkage, curation, and quality checks; appropriate methods for confounding control (matching, weighting, multivariable modeling, or target-trial emulation where suitable); transparent reporting of missing data and sensitivity analyses; and conclusions that respect the limits of observational evidence. Authors should consult the ESMO Guidance for Reporting Oncology real-World evidence (GROW) and structure their manuscripts accordingly — reviewers for this journal will be familiar with it.

For digital-health and AI submissions, validation is the crux: describe the algorithm or tool, the data it was developed and tested on, the reference standard, performance metrics with uncertainty, and any external validation. Implementation studies should report the clinical workflow context, user training, and measured effects on care processes or outcomes. Authors should also prepare a data-availability statement; where patient-level data cannot be shared, explain what can be shared (code, synthetic data, detailed protocols) and under what access arrangements.

On the practical side: confirm the current APC (USD 3,480 excluding taxes, per the official open-access page) and whether you qualify for the ESMO-member discount, a Research4Life waiver, or coverage under an institutional open-access agreement. Consider whether your manuscript fits an open special issue or article collection — themed collections on topics such as AI in clinical oncology or cancer registries can increase a paper's visibility, but they carry their own deadlines.

Who Should Publish Here — and Who Should Read It

The journal is built for researchers working with real-world oncology data: outcomes researchers, pharmacoepidemiologists, health-services researchers, registry scientists, clinical informaticians, biostatisticians, and digital-health innovators. Clinician-researchers with access to institutional data warehouses or registry collaborations will find a receptive, methodologically literate audience. Early-career researchers in data science for oncology may find the journal's educational content and its explicit welcome to implementation guidance particularly useful.

Readers include practicing oncologists seeking trustworthy guidance on digital tools, hospital data-science teams, regulators and health-technology assessors evaluating real-world evidence submissions, industry scientists running post-marketing studies, and policymakers concerned with access, equity, and the economics of cancer care. Because the journal is gold open access, its content reaches all of these audiences without subscription barriers.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is ESMO Real World Data and Digital Oncology?

It is the European Society for Medical Oncology's peer-reviewed, gold open-access journal devoted to real-world evidence and digital technologies in oncology, published by Elsevier since November 2023.

What is the journal's ISSN?

2949-8201 (electronic, online only).

Who is the Editor-in-Chief?

Dr. Rodrigo Dienstmann of the Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO) in Barcelona, appointed when the journal launched in 2023.

Is the journal open access? What is the APC?

Yes — gold open access. The article publishing charge is USD 3,480 (excluding taxes) for all article types, per the journal's official open-access page. ESMO members who are corresponding authors receive a 40% discount, and Research4Life-eligible authors receive automatic waivers or discounts.

Where is the journal indexed?

It is listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and its full text is available in PubMed Central from Volume 1 (2023). Third-party aggregators additionally report Web of Science coverage; authors should verify current indexing directly in the relevant database.

Does the journal have an Impact Factor?

No Impact Factor is officially published on the journal's own pages. A third-party aggregator reports a 2026 figure of 2.6, but this is not officially verified here — confirm any metric in Journal Citation Reports or Scopus before citing it.

What topics does the journal cover?

Real-world data and digital health in oncology: observational and health-services research, comparative effectiveness, clinico-genomics databases, patient-reported outcomes, decision-support systems, computational oncology, AI validation and implementation, and the human aspects of technology in cancer care.

What article types are accepted?

Original research, reviews, editorials, perspectives, correspondence, and news.

How should I report a real-world evidence study?

Follow the ESMO Guidance for Reporting Oncology real-World evidence (GROW), published in Annals of Oncology — the reporting standard the oncology community expects for such studies.

How do I submit?

Through Elsevier's online submission system, linked from the journal's homepage at esmorwd.org and its ScienceDirect journal page. Check the guide for authors and any open special-issue calls before submitting.

Reporting Standards: The ESMO-GROW Guidance

One of the most consequential developments for this journal's authors is the ESMO Guidance for Reporting Oncology real-World evidence (GROW), published in Annals of Oncology by a multidisciplinary group of experts from multiple institutions and countries. Real-world evidence in oncology was evolving rapidly, with particular methodological pitfalls — confounding by indication, immortal-time bias, missing data, uncertain data quality — and the guidance provides key recommendations for reporting real-world evidence studies across the full arc of an article: title, introduction, methods, results, discussion, and conclusion.

For prospective authors, GROW functions as both a checklist and a quality signal. A manuscript that follows GROW — describing data sources and linkage explicitly, justifying the study design, handling bias transparently, and calibrating conclusions to what the data can support — arrives at peer review speaking the methodological language the journal's editors and reviewers expect. Authors should read the guidance before drafting, not after: its recommendations shape decisions as fundamental as which data source to use and which analyses to pre-specify. The guidance's existence also tells you something about the journal's ambitions — ESMO is not merely publishing real-world studies, it is trying to raise the standard of how they are reported.

The Journal's Role in the AI Transformation of Oncology

Artificial intelligence runs through this journal's scope like a thread, from algorithm-powered diagnostics to decision-support systems to the evaluation of AI's net benefit in clinical practice. The journal's stance is neither boosterish nor alarmist: it publishes validation studies, implementation research, and critical perspectives, and it explicitly welcomes work on how the human aspect of medicine — the relationship between patient and physician — is affected as technology enters routine practice. The special issue on Artificial Intelligence in Clinical Oncology, guest-edited by Dr. Dienstmann and Prof. Dr. Jakob Nikolas Kather of TU Dresden, signals where the editors see the frontier: rigorous, clinically grounded AI research rather than proof-of-concept demonstrations.

This positioning matters because oncology is where AI's promises and risks are both most visible. An algorithm that reads pathology slides or predicts treatment response must be validated the way a drug is validated — on representative data, against meaningful endpoints, with attention to failure modes and equity effects. A journal owned by a major oncology society, edited by a data-science oncologist, and read by practicing clinicians is a natural venue for that validation literature. Authors with AI studies should come prepared with external validation, clear reference standards, and honest reporting of limitations; the journal's audience includes the clinicians who will decide whether to trust these tools at the bedside.

Is the journal affiliated with a medical society?

Yes. It is owned by the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) and published by Elsevier, sitting alongside ESMO's other journals: Annals of Oncology, ESMO Open, Immuno-Oncology and Technology, ESMO Gastrointestinal Oncology, and ESMO Rare Cancers.

Can ESMO members get a discount on the APC?

Yes. ESMO members who are corresponding authors are eligible for a 40% discount on the article publishing charge, effective from 1 January 2026, per the journal's official open-access page.