Publications in vascular journals: contribution by country.

The geographical origin of all published papers in four major vascular journals as well as the "vascular papers" in two high impact "general" surgical journals during a four year period (2003-2006) were examined by search of their electronic editions. As an index of high quality papers, the randomized controlled trials (RCT's) by country were also examined. A total of 3422 papers were searched in the four vascular journals (115 RCT's) while 144 "vascular" papers (19 RCT's) were located in the two "general" surgical journals. It was not surprising that USA and western European countries were having the largest contribution to the vascular literature.