Editorial
Letter from the Editor-in-Chief

Dear Colleagues,



This issue of the Journal of Contemporary Brachytherapy completes the third year of our magazine. This was a very important and exciting time for our society of brachytherapists especially when a new journal has to be organized by an international team, creating new work from the beginning. Now 70 scientists from 28 countries and 4 continents are involved in the editing process – most of them are from other countries then Poland. In the first 11 issues we published 37 clinical investigations, 17 physics contributions, 4 review articles, 3 preliminary reports, 4 educational articles, 5 biology contributions, 4 case reports, 1 letter to the Editor and 1 invited paper. Original papers were 77.6% of 76 published manuscripts. 76 papers from 16 countries were published: most of them from Poland (30 – especially in the first year), India (10), Spain (9), USA (9) and Hungary (4).

In first issue of 2009 we wrote: “Many of the papers on the subject of brachytherapy are published in different journals and at the moment only one journal published by American Brachytherapy Society is totally devoted to brachytherapy. It seems that another journal can essentially improve possibility to concentrate our knowledge and achievements in brachytherapy, and to build international team dedicating his time and effort to original work – scientific journal”. In my opinion, our Journal substantially improved our possibility to promote brachytherapy all over the world.

From the beginning JCB is edited by Polish Brachytherapy Society in cooperation with many involved brachytherapists. In next years we would like to establish closer cooperation with GEC-ESTRO, American Brachytherapy Society, Indian Brachytherapy Society, Canadian Brachytherapy Group, Australasian Brachytherapy Group, Japanese Group of Brachytherapy and other Societes and Teams of Specialists.

In last year the Editorial Office along with the Publisher continued the process of indexing JCB. Now the Journal is indexed in Scopus, Index Copernicus, EMBASE (Excerpta Medica), Polish Medical Library (GBL), Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), ProQuest base. And we are still waiting for answer from Index Medicus/MEDLINE and PubMed bases. In 2012 we plan to submit a letter to indexation in databases from so called Philadelphia list. And to receive IF, of course what is possible for the first time in 2012. In order to achieve next steps, we urgently require good, original papers of international origin and numerous citations in other papers. Please cite JCB articles in your papers. Not only clinical papers but also review papers, case reports, technical notes – are welcome.

Seven manuscripts are published in this issue – three clinical concerning prostate and cervical cancer, one review about comparison of 60Co and 192Ir sources in HDR brachytherapy, two physics contributions concerning breast cancer and prostate cancer and a new proposition – Pictorial Essay of penile brachythe­rapy. This Pictorial will be presented also on our webpage www.jocb.eu. Presented articles enclose results of clinical researches as well as physicists papers. Every paper has been carefully reviewed, however we are perfectly aware that several mistakes could be found. We are happy that more and more of our colleagues agrees to review and to publish their papers in our Journal.

I believe that with the great support of the members of the Editorial Board and our new readers the coming 2012 year will bring more success to our Journal. Editorial Board will constantly work to improve the quality of the manuscripts printed in the Journal to meet the authors and readers expectations. After 3 years of editorial work sincerely thank all the Co-Editors and members of the Editorial Board for their help in editing the Journal. I also thank all reviewers for persistent reviewing articles.







Sincerely yours,

Editor-in-Chief

Janusz Skowronek, MD, PhD, Ass. Prof.