[The Spanish Journal of Nuclear Medicine: from 1991 to 2000]

To describe the articles published in "Revista Española de Medicina Nuclear" (REMN) from 1991 through 2000.

Five hundred and forty-two articles (originals, reviews, editorials, letters, clinical notes and images of interest) published in REMN during the past 10 years (1991-2000) were gathered. The following variables were assessed: topic, procedure, type of article, number of authors, Spanish region affiliation, country, number of pages and number of references. The results for the five year periods 1991-1995 and 1996-2000 were also presented.

Excluding the editorial contributions, the most dealt with topic was the osteoarticular system (14.9%), followed by the heart (14.2%), endocrinology (12.1%), gastroenterology (11.3%) and neurology (10,3%). One hundred and thirty articles were linked to oncology. Madrid (23.7%), Catalonia (22.5%), Andalucia (10.6%) and Aragon (10.1%) were the Spanish regions that made the most contributions. Conventional planar scintigraphic studies were the most used procedure (49.1%), followed by SPECT (16.6%). The countries that were represented most were Spain and Cuba, with 410 and 36 works, respectively. The global trend underwent little change in the above variables in the decade. The pages/paper index was 6.1 +/- 1.7 for original papers and 6.5 +/- 4.3 for reviews. The authors/paper index was 6.3 +/- 2.3 for original papers and 2.7 +/- 2.1 for reviews. The references/paper index was 21.9 +/- 11.4 for original papers and 3+/- 1.1 39.6 for reviews. These three indexes increased in all sections between the periods 1991-1995 and 1996-2000.

This survey shows subtle qualitative changes throughout the period analyzed. A quantitative increase in the scientific production in the REMN seems to exist. However, many factors must be considered in the final evaluation of these results and this remains beyond the scope of this descriptive work.