title: Japan's contribution to research on cardiovascular disease.
abstract: Japan's contribution to the research on cardiovascular disease in the past decade was analyzed by accessing journal articles published in 1991-2000 in the MEDLINE database. The number of articles having an affiliation with a Japanese institution was counted and summed up as a whole and also separately for each journal with statistical time trend analysis. The proportions of randomized controlled study (RCT), case - control/cohort study, and case reports in articles from Japan were also determined. Of the total articles, Japan's contribution to the research on cardiovascular disease was 8.9% and ranked 2nd in the world. The recent increase in the contribution was not significant (p=0.25). Compared with other countries, the proportions of RCT (2.3%) and case - control/cohort study (2.3%) were smaller and that of case reports was similar (5.7%). Although the overall contribution from Japan in the field of cardiovascular disease is satisfactory, high-quality clinical research is as meager as in other clinical fields.
authors.affiliation: Department of General Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Japan.
authors.forename: Yasuaki
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Hayashino
authors.forename: Mahbubur
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rahman
authors.forename: Tsuguya
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Fukui
mesh_terms: D035843:Biomedical Research; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases; D016021:Epidemiologic Studies; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D016239:MEDLINE / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011642:Publications / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic / Q000706:statistics & numerical data