EDITORIAL

This is the second year that ISI has ranked Neuro-Oncology with regard to “impact factor.” We are very pleased with the journal’s increased rating, which has risen to 3.365 and places it 34th highest among the 120 oncology journals, as well as 16th highest among 135 clinical neurology journals. Neuro-Oncology continues to compare very favorably with the most similar journals in these two fields, such as the Journal of Neuro-Oncology (ranked 76th in Oncology and 63rd in Clinical Neurology), Neurosurgery (ranked 40th in Clinical Neurology), and the Journal of Neurosurgery (ranked 44th in Clinical Neurology). The table below allows comparison of the Neuro-Oncology impact factor rating with those of some other journals in oncology and clinical neurology.

2003 Ratings for Two ISI Categories^*

Rank	Journal	Impact Factor
Oncology
3	Cancer Cell	18.913
7	Cancer Research	8.649
11	Clinical Cancer Research	6.511
20	International Journal of Cancer	4.375
28	British Journal of Cancer	3.894
34	Neuro-Oncology	3.365
35	Molecular Cancer Therapeutics	3.201
43	Breast Cancer Research	2.932
45	Molecular Carcinogenesis	2.806
49	International Journal of Oncology	2.536
53	Gynecologic Oncology	2.341
76	Journal of Neuro-Oncology	1.568
Clinical Neurology
3	Neurology	5.678
6	Journal of Neuropathology and Experimental Neurology	5.005
11	Brain Pathology	3.838
16	Neuro-Oncology	3.365
29	American Journal of Neuroradiology	2.629
32	Acta Neuropathologica	2.556
40	Neurosurgery	2.338
44	Journal of Neurosurgery	2.286
63	Journal of Neuro-Oncology	1.568
69	Clinical Neuroscience Research	1.338

^*Includes ISI ratings only for selected journals in these two categories that publish research articles (http://isi4.isiknowledge.com/portal.cgi/jcr, accessed July 30, 2004).

As we have previously noted, the impact factor is used by editors, publishers, advertisers, librarians, and academic researchers for positioning the journal in relation to comparable journals. Moreover, some academic promotion committees, especially in Europe, consider the impact factor ratings in evaluating institutional faculty for promotion and for distributing institutional funds to departments.

Two additional citation measures calculated by ISI, less well known than the impact factor, are the immediacy index of a journal, which measures how quickly a journal is cited by counting citations within the year of publication, and the cited half-life, which measures how durable a journal’s material is by averaging the age of the citations to the journal. All these measures taken together show the importance for all who care about Neuro-Oncology to cite our Neuro-Oncology articles whenever and wherever that is appropriate.

Another positive indication for Neuro-Oncology is the increasing numbers of manuscripts being submitted. This enables us to publish only the best of the articles we receive. The most prestigious journals achieve their high impact factors by publishing only those articles that are truly excellent and truly important for their clinical and research communities, and those are precisely the papers we hope you will submit to Neuro-Oncology.

We want to thank our authors for their past contributions, which have formed the basis of this continued high ranking of the Neuro-Oncology impact factor. To continue to keep our excellent rating, we ask all members of the World Federation, including members of the Society for Neuro-Oncology, the Asian Society for Neuro-Oncology, and the European Association for Neuro-Oncology, to continue to submit their best articles for publication in Neuro-Oncology. Sending us your best papers will ensure that Neuro-Oncology remains at the forefront of journals that relate to clinical and basic research in neuro-oncology.

In addition to our all-important contributors, we extend our thanks as well to our most excellent reviewers, to Janet Parsons for her editorial assistance, and to the Duke University Press staff for all of their assistance in maintaining high standards for our journal.