BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVEPubMed is generally acknowledged for its scientificity in literature coverage and authority of literature retrieval . In recent years, many studies have been published in China about radiation oncology. We aimed to investigate the literatures about radiation oncology in China covered by PubMed over the past five years.

METHODSWe collected primary data by searching the PubMed database using the related subject words. The collected data were analyzed and evaluated by bibliometric methods.

RESULTSIn the past five years, 550 articles by Chinese authors related to radiotherapy were indexed in PubMed. These articles were published in 160 journals among 26 Chinese provinces/cities. These articles mainly focused on radiation dose and computer-aided radiation therapy. Sixty-four articles were published by Chinese Journal of Cancer , which ranked the top. Forty-four articles were published by the International Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology Physics (IF=4.29), with the largest number among SCI journals. One hundred and sixteen articles from Guangdong Province were covered, accounting for 21.09%.

CONCLUSIONSOver the past five years, the discipline of radiation oncology has been greatly developed. The literatures mainly focus on clinical radiation oncology and their regional distribution is uneven.