Announcing the winner of the John J. Sciarra IJGO prize paper award for 2024

Abstract

The editors of the International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics (IJGO) are pleased to announce the winner of the prize paper award for the best clinical research paper from a low- or middle-income country published in IJGO during 2024. The winning paper is: Soares FM, da Rocha Carvalho Rosa LO, Cecatti JG, et al. Design, construction, and validation of obstetric risk classification systems to predict intensive care unit admission. Int J Gynecol Obstet. 2024; 167: 1243–1254. https://doi.org/10.1002/ijgo.15782. It was published in the December 2024 issue of IJGO.

This award brings with it a stipend of £800, a certificate of recognition, and complimentary access to IJGO for a period of 1 year from the date the prize is awarded.

All clinical research articles submitted to the IJGO from low- and middle-income countries that were published in 2024 were considered for this prize. The paper was chosen from 181 qualifying articles. Selection and review were undertaken by the editors, and the Editorial Board of IJGO endorsed the decision.

The winning paper is by Soares et al. The study investigates the development and validation of a machine-learning-based risk classification system to predict intensive care unit (ICU) admission for high-risk pregnant women. Using data from 9550 cases of severe maternal morbidity, machine-learning models were tested on accuracy, sensitivity and specificity. The highest-performing model, XGBoost, estimated ICU admission at 11.6%, lower than the actual 21.5%, suggesting the potential overuse of ICU resources. The findings of this study highlight the potential for AI-driven tools to optimize ICU allocation and improve maternal care.

Additional papers that are worthy of special recognition are awarded an honorable mention. While the honorable mention recognition does not include a financial award, each author receives a certificate of recognition and a letter of commendation from the editors of IJGO.

The following 11 papers receive an honorable mention: