BIOMEDICAL PAPERS BY CHILEAN AUTHORS PUBLISHED IN INTERNATIONAL JOURNALS DURING 1997 - A SELECTION FROM MEDLINE

Background: Many Chilean biomedical investigators publish the results of their research in international journals, not easily accesible to f ellow physicians of the country. Aim: To assess the amount and quality of papers published by Chilean authors in international journals. Dat a source and methods: Using MEDLINE databases from January to August, 1997, all papers in which Chile appeared in the field ''AD'' (Address of author) were selected. Papers with a clear relationship to human me dicine were identified. Results: During the study period, 390 papers w ith authors residing in Chile appeared in MEDLINE. Of these, 188 (48%) were published in Chile and the rest was published abroad. Thirty man uscripts had a greater relationship to clinical medicine and the autho rs of nine of them were invited to submit translation of their abstrac t into Spanish to have them reproduced in the present article. Conclus ions: A significant proportion of biomedical research papers originate d in Chile is published abroad with the consequent lack of diffusion a mong non-specialized readers from their own country.