Scientific publications in cardiology and cardiovasology journals from Chinese authors in various parts of North Asia: 10-year survey of literature

Background: People of Chinese ethnicity make up one of the largest populations in the world. Heart and vessel diseases remain the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in China. The research status in cardiology and cardiovasology among Chinese individuals in the three major regions of China--Mainland (ML), Hong Kong (HK) and Taiwan (TW)--are unknown. The outputs of cardiology and cardiovasology articles published in international journals from the three regions were compared in this study.

Methods: Articles published in 83 journals related to cardiology and cardiovasology originating from the ML, TW and HK from 1998-2007 were retrieved from the PubMed database. The number of total articles, clinical trial, randomized controlled trial, case reports, impact factors (IF), citations, and articles published in top general medicine journals were conducted for quantity and quality comparisons.

Results: The total number of articles from the three regions increased significantly from 1998 to 2007 (from 154 to 591). There were 2801 articles from ML (883), TW (1404) and HK (514) in the past ten years. The number of articles published per year from the ML (297) have exceeded those from TW (235) and HK (59) in 2007. The accumulated impact factor of the articles from TW (4082.736) was much higher than ML (2221.699) and HK (1673.049). HK had the highest average IF of cardiology and cardiovasology articles and the most articles published in top general medicine journals among the three regions.

Conclusion: The total number of articles from the three major regions of China increased significantly from 1998 to 2007. The number of articles published per year from the ML have exceeded those from TW and HK. However, the quality of articles from TW and HK is better than that from ML.