New Take-Off to an International Journal

The Journal of Korean Brain Tumor Society was first published on March 30, 2002, and 22 issues have been published until 2012 without delay or interruption. The journal was published twice a year and was a mix of Korean and English languages. When we consider the reality in the field of brain tumor research, it was possible because of a lot of effort and sacrifice of many members of the previous editor-in chiefs. I would like to express our deepest gratitude to the members of the former editor-in chiefs. Through these efforts of the past 10 years, the Journal of Korean Brain Tumor Society was approved as a regular member by Korean Association of Medical Journal Editors (KAMJE) in 2013, and was able to establish a foundation to develop into an international journal in the future. The Korean Society for Neuro-Oncology which was founded in 2011 decided to publish a journal in collaboration with The Korean Brain Tumor Society. Through many discussions, the Journal of Korean Brain Tumor Society was re-launched as an English journal with a new name Brain Tumor Research and Treatment (BTRT). BTRT is the official journal of The Korean Brain Tumor Society and The Korean Society for Neuro-Oncology. BTRT aims to enter the SCI (E) class within five years. To develop into an international journal, we appointed international editors who are very famous in the field of brain tumor research, such as Susan M. Chang (UCSF), Frederick F. Lang (MDACC), Hideyuki Saya (Keio University), Koichi Ichimura (National Cancer Center Japan), Patrick Y. Wen (Harvard Medical School), Michael Lim (Johns Hopkins Hospital), and Isaac Yang (UCLA). We reinforced the review committee as a comprehensive multi-disciplinary team consisting of prestige experts of neurosurgery, radiation oncology, hemato-oncology, pediatric hemato-oncology, radiology, pathology, and basic scientists. The journal homepage and on-line submission system will be completed in the near future with wholehearted help from The Korean Brain Tumor Society and The Korean Society for Neuro-Oncology. The BTRT covers all basic and clinical researches related to brain and spinal cord tumors, and papers from all over the world are welcome. Currently, the representative journals in the field of Neuro-oncology are Neuro-Oncology and the Journal of Neuro-Oncology, which are very high quality journals and which are hard to be accepted for publication. Therefore, BTRT welcomes submissions especially from Asian countries. We hope that BTRT serves as a venue of the academic communication and sharing of information among brain tumor researchers from around the world, as well as from Asia. We had planned to publish twice a year, but within a short period, we aim to publish 4 times a year. So, submissions from many researchers are needed. BTRT just began to prepare to be listed as SCI (E) class. Therefore, all papers that are submitted should comply with all the international research ethics regulations, and peer review will be more stringent than before. We will switch to open access and will try to be listed in KoreaMed, Synapse, Pubmed Central, SCOPUS, etc to be able to be read by many readers from all over the world. Lastly, I want to express my sincere gratitude to Professor Oh-Ryong Kim, the president of Korean Brain Tumor Society, and Doctor Seung-Hoon Lee, the president of Korean Society for Neuro-Oncology for the wholehearted help. And I want to offer words of thanks to the members of editorial board, reviewers that have been participated enthusiastically.