Brief Report on Academic Productions on Rheumatic Diseases in China

Academic productions by Chinese scholars have grown to the second place worldwide since 2009. However, little was known about Chinese academic contributions and influences on rheumatic diseases. In order to present a panorama of this field, a bibliometric analysis was performed based on data from two databases from 1987 to 2015. China has kept the third place in rheumatic diseases’ publications since 2013. Nevertheless, most of these articles came with low impact factors and infrequent citations. Multidisciplinary teams led by orthopedists and rheumatologists were being built. Most popular journals mainly focused on rheumatology, while journals about Chinese medicine were unpopular. Though on right tracks, to study rheumatic diseases well in China, efforts from all aspects are needed.