Publications by radiation oncologists from India: a brief survey

In India, the past three decades have seen a rapid growth of radiotherapy as a specialty. Has this led to an improvement in the quality and quantity of publications related to radiotherapy? To study this we evaluated publications by radiation oncologists of India from 1992 to 1998.

Twelve journals (5 Indian and 7 international) indexed in PubMed which publish radiation oncology-related papers were surveyed between January 1992 and June 1998 in terms of the content of the papers and institutional affiliation of the radiation oncologists from India. Of a total of 14 436 papers published during this period, 2562 were in Indian and 11 874 in international journals. We also evaluated the contents of the publications.

The contribution of radiation oncologists from India accounted for 109 papers (0.75%)-64 (2.5%) and 45 (0.4%) in Indian and international journals, respectively. Three institutions from India contributed 52 of the 109 published papers (47.7%). Articles on radiation oncology from India constituted less than 1% of the surveyed publications. Also, publications with a 'good' scientific content formed a small part of the Indian radiotherapy publications.

Collaborative studies, inter-institutional trials and randomized clinical trials relating to key oncological problems in India need to be carried out to establish consensus and guidelines at a national level.