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Han, Ju, Lee, Cha, Lee, and Bae: Medical papers related to keywords of vaccine and vaccination in KoreaMed database, Korea (1962-2012)
Original Article
Clinical and Experimental Vaccine Research

Clinical and Experimental Vaccine Research 2012; 1(1): 64-69.

Published online: 31 July 2012

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7774/cevr.2012.1.1.64

Medical papers related to keywords of vaccine and vaccination in KoreaMed database, Korea (1962-2012)

Myung Hee Han1, Hee Young Ju1, Kyung Suk Lee1, Sung-Ho Cha1, Young-Jin Lee2, Chong-Woo Bae1

1Department of Pediatrics, Kyung Hee University Hospital at Gangdong, Kyung Hee University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.

2Medical Library, Kyung Hee University Hospital at Gangdong, Kyung Hee University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.

Corresponding author: Chong-Woo Bae, MD. Department of Pediatrics, Kyung Hee University Hospital at Gangdong, Kyung Hee University School of Medicine, 892 Dongnam-ro, Gangdong-gu, Seoul 134-727, Korea. Tel: +82-2-440-6130, Fax: +82-2-440-7175, baecw@khnmc.or.kr

Received 7 May 2012       Revised 25 May 2012       Accepted 10 June 2012

© Korean Vaccine Society.

(open-access):

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Purpose

To describe the present status and changing patterns of medical papers related to keywords of vaccine and vaccination published in Korea over the last 50 years, and provide basic data for future studies.

Materials and Methods

185,603 papers are registered in the medical database KoreaMed, which is run by Korean Association of Medical Journal Editors. Among these papers, a search with the keywords vaccine or vaccination revealed a total of 1,089 articles which were published on vaccine and/or vaccination during the period of September 2, 1962 to April 30, 2012. Our study endeavors to analyze these 1,089 articles.

Results

Only one article published with the keywords vaccine and/or vaccination was published in the 1960s, and the number of journals steadily increased starting from the 1970s (24 articles) to 2 times, 10 times, 20 times in the 1980s, 1990s, and the 2000s (585 articles), respectively. The articles were classified into reviews (20.2%), original articles with clinical study (40.7%), original articles with experimental study (24.6%), and case reports (8.2%). The review articles mainly dealt with an overview. The original articles with clinical study were on epidemiology, effect and immunogenicity, clinical trial. Original articles with experimental study were mainly comprised of complication and overview. Articles on vaccine, pathogen or disease topics were mostly microorganisms such as bacteria or viruses, and studies on anti-cancer vaccines or vaccines of specific diseases were sparse.

Conclusion

The above data reflects the clinical uses of vaccines in Korea and the history of vaccine studies. The number of vaccine-related articles is increasing rapidly since the first article was published in 1962. This implies that with the increase of studies of clinical trials, clinical uses and results and analyses of the results, articles relating to basic studies are also on the rise. We intend these findings to be of use to researchers in this active and expanding field.

Keywords: Medical papers, Journals, Vaccines, Vaccination, KoreaMed, Medline, PubMed

Introduction

Numerous science and engineering papers are published daily. According to the report of Science and Engineering Indicators 2010 of the U.S. National Science Foundation [1,2], the article counts from a set of journals covered by Science Citation Index (SCI) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) [3] during the period between 1995 to 2007, reaches a count of 2.55 million articles, 3.6 times the count of Japan with 0.7 million articles. The leading five countries in order are the U.S., Japan, England, Germany, France with Korea in 14th place with 143 thousand articles and a count rapidly increasing since 1993.
In 2009, the SCI article count of all documented articles on all sciences worldwide is 1.41 million with Korea's count being 42 thousand (2.9%), and the count of research papers excluding meeting abstracts worldwide is 1.11 million with Korea's count 37 thousand (3.3%). The number of medical papers registered up to April, 2012 at the medical database KoreaMed [4] run by Korean Association of Medical Journal Editors (KAMJE) is 185,603 in 188 different medical journals. Also the number of journals in this database is increasing rapidly each year.
Among the increasing Science and Engineering papers, how many are related to the keywords "vaccine and vaccination"? This is the essence of our study. Since analyzing the current trend of all overseas articles is difficult due to the sheer volume, we decided to analyze the trend in Korea through KoreaMed. With the papers registered in KoreaMed from January 1, 1962 to April 30, 2012 we analyzed the number and propotion of medical papers related to keywords of vaccine and vaccination, and classified them according to the article types. We also tried to establish characteristics of medical papers related to the keywords vaccine and vaccination published in the last 50 years by analyzing the subjects of the original articles, the subjects' age, study topic, and microorganism or vaccine lists. Therefore, our purpose is to grasp the current state of vaccine-related studies in Korea and provide information for further studies.

Materials and Methods

The medical database KoreaMed [4], managed by KAMJE was founded and started registering journals on December 31, 1996. Currently 185,603 papers in 188 types of medical journals are registered up to April 30, 2012. There was a total of 1,089 articles related to vaccine and/or vaccination when searched with the keywords vaccine or vaccination. These were articles published from, September 2, 1962 to April 30, 2012. The following categories were analyzed regarding these 1,089 articles (Table 1).
The categories are as follows: 1) the types of articles (review articles, original articles, case reports), 2) the subjects of the original articles (clinical study, in vitro and in vivo experimental study), 3) the age of the subjects (children, adults, children+adults, animals, laboratory, others), 4) the topics (overview, epidemiology, effect, diagnosis, prevention, etiology and pathogenesis, characteristics, manifestations, treatment, clinical trials, complication, immunogenicity, others), 5) microorganism or vaccine lists.

Results

Number of medical papers by searching the keywords vaccine and/or vaccination in KoreaMed database (September 2, 1962 to April 30, 2012)

185,603 articles were registered in KoreaMed until the end of April in 2012. When searched with the keyword vaccine or vaccination separately, 670 articles were found on vaccine and 700 articles were found on vaccination. A more specific research revealed 389 articles found only in the vaccine keyword search, 419 articles found only in the vaccination keyword search, and 281 articles appeared in both searches. Thus, the total number of articles relating to vaccine and/or vaccination is 1,089. This comprises 0.58% of the total 185,693 articles (Table 1).

Number of medical papers by searching vaccine and or vaccination and minor keywords in KoreaMed database (September 2, 1962 to April 30, 2012)

The distribution of articles when the keywords vaccine and/or vaccination and various minor keywords were searched is organized in Table 2. The minor keywords, in conjunction with major keywords vaccine and/or vaccination, included the following with the numbers representing the count of articles; study (311), infection (215), virus (189), research (180), clinical (183), control (174), immunization (171), children (160), antibody (149), cell (147), immune (140), prevention (135), human (134), immunology (129), response (126), development (118), protein (111), review (111), analysis (106), antigen (103).

Article count on vaccine and/or vaccination published yearly

After 1962, the number of articles about vaccine and/or vaccination being published in a decade is mounting up. One article in the 1960s (0.1%), 24 in 1970s (2.2%), 46 in 1980s (4.2%), 242 in 1990s (22.2%), 585 in the 2000s (53.8%), 191 from 2010 to April, 2012 (27.5%) were published. There is a significant rise in numbers especially since the 1980s onwards. With the 1970s as a reference point, there was a two-fold rise in the 1980s, 10-fold rise in the 1990s, and a 20-fold rise in the 2000s. This was evidence that showed the correlation to the historical background in the usage of vaccines and/or vaccinations (Table 3).

Characteristics of the articles

Types of articles

The total of 1,089 articles were comprised of 220 review articles (20.2%), 780 original articles (71.6%), and 89 case reports (8.2%). Of the 780 original articles, there were 512 (65.4%), 268 (34.4%) articles of clinical study and articles of experimental study, respectively. Of the 268 articles on experimental study, in vivo and in vitro took up 122 (45.5%) and 146 (54.5%) each. The original articles with clinical study covered the widest range (Table 4).

Contents of the articles

The 1,089 articles containing review articles, original articles, and case reports were classified into different categories by their contents; 24.4% were overviews, 11.7% of epidemiology, 25.3% of effect and immunogenicity, 1.9% of diagnosis, 0.6% of prevention, 10.1% of etiology and pathogenesis, 2.0% of characteristics, 2.5% of manifestations, 3.0% of treatments, 11.5% of clinical trials, 6.9% of complications.
Most of the reviews were overviews (175/220) while original articles with clinical study were mostly composed of epidemiology, effect and immunogenicity, and clinical trials. Original articles with experimental study were mainly composed of effect and immunogenicity, and etiology and pathogenesis while case reports were mostly complications and overviews (Table 4).

Subjects of the articles

The subjects of the 1,089 articles were divided into children (27.9%), adults (23.7%), children and adults (19.0%), animals (11.7%), laboratory experiments (16.2%), others (1.6%). The review articles and original articles with clinical study usually dealt with humans (children, adults, or both), while original articles with experimental study mostly dealt with animals in in vivo studies, and laboratory data in in vitro studies (Table 4).

Vaccine, pathogen, or disease topics

The types of vaccines, pathogens, and diseases chosen as topics in review articles, original articles with clinical study, original articles with experimental study (in vivo and in vitro), and case reports are shown in Table 5. There was a wide variation in the vaccines chosen as the topic among the review articles, clinical studies, experimental studies, and case reports. The review articles, clinical studies, and case reports mostly dealt with vaccines currently in use while experimental studies included a wider range of topics.

Discussion

In Medline/PubMed baseline database [5,6], a database of biomedical papers managed by the US National Library of Medicine, approximately 23,000 articles are updated everyday and about 20 million records are contained up to the present May, 2012. Among these articles, 236 thousand articles are found in a search with keywords vaccine and/or vaccination, which is about 1.8% of the total. In the KoreaMed database [4], 1,089 articles were found from a total of 185,603 articles, constituting 0.58% of the total, roughly half the percentage of articles on "vaccine and/or vaccination" in the Medline/PubMed database. In short, compared to the publications on vaccine and/or vaccination worldwide, the publications in Korea are relatively less.
The utilization of vaccines for specific diseases started in the 1970s. Therefore with the start of 1 article on vaccine and/or vaccination published in the 1960s, and 24 in the 1970s, the number has doubled in the 1980s, increased 10-fold in the 1990s, and increased 20-fold to a total of 585 articles in the 2000s. This reflects the active proliferation of studies done on vaccines in Korea around that period. Also, the number is expected to increase even more in the 2010s. Deducing from the results above, the percentage of articles with the keywords "vaccine and/or vaccination" is expected to increase as well as the proportion on the topic of vaccine in biomedical studies and research.
When classified by their types, review articles took up 20.2%, original articles 71.6%, and case reports 8.2%. A more detailed categorization showed reviews, original articles with clinical study, original articles with experimental study, and case reports as 20.2%, 40.7%, 24.6%, 8.2%, respectively with original articles at the most. The original articles were further divided into clinical studies and experimental studies with the ratio of 2:1. The clinical studies and experimental studies in particular are on the rise, and articles with high academic value that provide data for clinical and basic studies were encouraged.
It is a matter of course that the contents of the articles differ according to the article types. The contents of review articles were mostly overview, and the contents of original articles with clinical study were epidemiology, effect and immunogenicity, and clinical trials. Case reports mostly contained complications and overviews, clinical studies had contents on effect and pharmacology, and experimental studies focused on basic research such as pathogenesis and immunologic analysis.
The vaccines, pathogens, or diseases that were the topics of these articles are most probably related to the period background. Thus, studies showed a tendency towards microorganisms such as bacteria and viruses while studies on anticancer vaccines or vaccines of particular diseases were sparse. The trend can be expected to include a wider range of topics such as vaccines dealing with miscellaneous diseases caused by other microorganisms or immunologic diseases, or anticancer vaccines instead of the invention of vaccines for known pathogens.
This study reflects well the historical background of vaccines research and their clinical usage in Korea. Ever since the first article on vaccines was published in 1962, the number of vaccine-related articles are increasing. This shows that research results on basic experiments are also rapidly increasing as well as studies on clinical trials, vaccine utilization, and analysis of the results. We intend these findings to be of use to researchers in this active and expanding field.

Figures and Tables

Table 1
Number of medical papers by searching the keywords vaccine and/or vaccination in KoreaMeda) database (September 2, 1962-April 30, 2012)
cevr-1-64-i001

a)KoreaMed: KoreaMed search system provides access not only to the KoreaMed database of bibliographic information but also medical journal information, is established by the Korean Association of Medical Journal Editors (http://www.koreamed.org).

Table 2
Number of medical papers by searching vaccine and/or vaccination and minor keywords in KoreaMeda) database (September 2, 1962-April 30, 2012)
cevr-1-64-i002

a)KoreaMed: KoreaMed search system provides access not only to the KoreaMed database of bibliographic information but also medical journal information, is established by the Korean Association of Medical Journal Editors (http://www.koreamed.org).

Table 3
Article count on vaccine and/or vaccination published yearly in KoreaMeda) database (September 2, 1962-April 30, 2012)
cevr-1-64-i003

a)KoreaMed: KoreaMed search system provides access not only to the KoreaMed database of bibliographic information but also medical journal information, is established by the Korean Association of Medical Journal Editors (KAMJE) (http://www.koreamed.org).

Table 4
Characteristics of the articles
cevr-1-64-i004
Table 5
Vaccine, pathogen, and disease topics in frequency
cevr-1-64-i005

HPV, human papillomavirus; BCG, Bacillus Calmette-Guérin; MMR, measles, mumps, and rubella; AIDS, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome; RS, Reed-Sternberg; EB, Epstein-Barr; DTP, diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis; AGI, acute gastrointestinal infection; Td, tetanus and diphtheria; Hib., Haemophilus influenza type B; ADEM, acute disseminated encephalomyelitis; HIV, human immunodeficiency virus; IBDV, infectious bursal disease virus; GnRH, gonadotropin releasing hormone; Tb., tuberculosis; HSV, herpes simplex virus; HGM-CSF, human granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor; NK, natural killer; HFRS, haemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome.

Notes

No potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.

References

1. National Academy of Medicine of Korea. Korea medical research report 2010. 2011. Seoul: National Academy of Medicine of Korea;8–18.
2. National Science Board. Science and engineering indicators 2010. 2010. Arlington: National Science Foundation;5.5–5.45.
3. Thomson Reuters. SCI and SCIE [Internet]. c2012. cited 2012 May 30. New York: Thomson Reuters;Available from: http://thomsonreuters.com/products_services/science/.
4. Korean Association of Medical Journals Editor. KoreaMed [Internet]. c2012. cited 2012 May 30. Seoul: Korean Association of Medical Journals Editor;Available from: http://www.koreamed.org.
5. US National Library of Medicine. Leasing journal citations (Medline/PubMed including Oldmedline) [Internet]. 2011. cited 2012 May 30. Bethesda: US National Library of Medicine;Available from: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/databases/journal.html.
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