Scientific publications in urology and nephrology journals from China: A 10-year analysis

Background: The scientific research in urology and nephrology of China has developed significantly. The present study was designed to analyze the outputs of publications in urology and nephrology journals from three regions of China: mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Methods: The numbers of articles, impact factors, citation reports and other indexes within this category between 2000 and 2009 were extracted for quantity and quality comparisons from PubMed and the ISI (Institute for Scientific Information-currently called the Thomson Reuters Web of Knowledge) database. Results: There were 3100 articles from the mainland (36.5%), Taiwan (46.8%) and Hong Kong (16.7%), and the increasing trend in each region was significant (p < 0.001). The accumulated impact factor and total citation of Taiwan exceeded the other two regions, while the average impact factor and citation of Hong Kong was highest. There were differences between the three regions on the most popular journals. Interpretation: Although the quantity of articles in urology and nephrology from the mainland has exceeded Taiwan and Hong Kong since 2008, there is a considerable gap in the quality of articles between the mainland and the other two regions.