Assessing Hyperthermia and Cancer Research Productivity Shu-Wan Yeh 1 *, Shih-Ting Hung 1, Yuan-Hsin Chang 1, Yee-Shuan Lee 2 and Yuh-Shan Ho 1# 1 School of Public Health, Taipei Medical University 2 Bibliometric Centre, Taipei Medical University - Wan-Fang Hospital Introduction Fever is one of the most powerful mechanisms in our immune system. Hyperthermia artificially induces fever in patients who are unable to mount a natural fever response to infection, inflammation or other health challenges. It is an effective self-help treatment for the common cold and ful (The Burton Goldberg Group, 1993). The objective was to evaluate hyperthermia and cancer research production pattern from 1991 to 2002 in the scientific journals listed by ISI (Institute for Scientific Information, Philadelphia, USA).Methodology The research papers were obtained upon Science Citation Index (SCI) literature search with defined keywords ‘hyperthermia and cancer’. Analysis variables included number of authors, sources, language, document type, research address, times cited and publication year. Relative Citation Rate (RCR) value higher than 1 indicated it has much impact than the average of its field. Results and Discussion The number of papers published by different countries in the period and their percentage share is shown in Table 1. Ranking based on citation analysis yielded quite a different ranking of countries even though CPP and RCR did not show distinctive patterns. Countries with RCR value higher than 1 indicated they had much impact than the average of this field. Figure 1 clearly showed the citation per publication (CPP) and the production trend. A total of 1504 papers were published in 399 SCI indexed journals from 48 countries during the time span from 1991 to 2002 concerning hyperthermia and cancer (Figure 1). Over 96% of the papers were published in English with French, German, Japanese and Russian accounted for the remaining share. Most papers were published by United States and Japan contributing 32% and 19% respectively (Table 1). 90% of the papers were in the form of articles, 5.7% review, 1.5% meeting abstract, 1.1% editorial material, 0.86% note and 0.86% letter. Conclusion  Smaller to medium size collaboration was popular.  USA has highest publication (32%) and citation (36%).  The seven major industrial countries (G7) (U.S.A., Japan, Germany, U.K., France, Italy and Canada) represent a share of 79% of hyperthermia and cancer research publications and 77% of citations.  “Kerr, J.F.R., Winterford, C.M. and Harmon, B.V. (1994), Apoptosis - Its significance in cancer and cancer-therapy. Cancer, 73 (8), ” was the most cited paper with 1000 times cited. References The Burton Goldberg Group (1993), Alternative Medicine, The Definitive Guide, Future Medicine Publishing, Washington, USA. Publication and citation of various number of authors Table 1. Publication output, citation frequency, CPP and RCR of top 20 publishing countries P: Publication, C: Times cited, CPP: Citation per publication, RCR: Relative citation rate Publication and citation of various page counts Figure 1. Annual publication output and CPP