Aim: The paper reviews current scientific publishing practice in the journal Nuklearmedizin.
Method: The scientific publications in the 2000 and 2001 issues of the journal were analyzed retrospectively with regard to their authors, formal content criteria and citation practice.
Results: 102 articles (69 original papers, 29 case reports, 4 review articles) were published. Of a total of 561 authors, 80 first authors came from Germany, 9 from Austria, 3 from Switzerland, and 10 from other countries. In 58 out of the 102 publications, researchers from other medical specialties were co-authors. The first authors were based at university hospitals or research centers in the case of 88 out of 102 publications. The author of one article had his own practice. Of the 102 first authors, 24 were female with a statistically significantly (p = 0.04) higher proportion in case reports compared to original papers. A total of 88/98 original papers and case reports were categorized as clinical research, 2 out of 69 original papers as experimental research, and 8 as management, health policy and radiation protection. 36 out of 102 articles were in English. The 69 original papers included a median of 48 investigated patients (range 4-991). A total of 2555 other papers with a median of 19 (range 3-230) was cited, comprising 212 citations of the journal Nuklearmedizin, i.e. 8.3% (range 0-56%).
Conclusion: The number of authors per paper documents the tendency to team work with a major participation of other specialties; university hospitals and research centers are represented more often. There is a predominance of clinical research with a high average number of patients per study. The percentage of first female authors are proportionate to their percentage membership in the learned societies. The relatively high percentage of papers in English raises the potential to increase the scientific response to publication of the content.