Oncology

About Oncology

Oncology: International Journal of Cancer Research and Treatment

Oncology is one of the shortest journal titles in medicine and one of the easiest to confuse with other publications, so this profile begins with identification. The journal recorded here is Oncology, subtitled International Journal of Cancer Research and Treatment, published by Karger Publishers of Basel, Switzerland, with print ISSN 0030-2414 and electronic ISSN 1423-0232. It is an international journal of clinical and translational cancer research. It is not the American professional magazine and journal long associated with Cancer Network, it is not Karger's separate German-language successor title Oncology Research and Treatment, and it is not any of the many newer journals whose titles begin with the word Oncology. The ISSN pair and the Karger imprint, taken together, identify it unambiguously.

At a Glance

Aims: Translation in Both Directions

Karger's aims and scope statement for Oncology is unusually precise, and this profile follows it closely. The journal works to accelerate the translation of experimental results into the clinic, and back again into the laboratory for further investigation. The fundamental purpose of that effort is to advance clinically relevant knowledge of cancer and to improve the outcome of prevention, diagnosis and treatment of malignant disease. Two ideas in that statement deserve emphasis. The first is the direction of travel: translation is described as a two-way street, from bench to bedside and from bedside back to bench, so a clinical observation that raises a laboratory question is as much in scope as a laboratory finding with clinical implications. The second is the test of relevance: the knowledge must be clinically relevant, connected to the prevention, diagnosis or treatment of malignant disease, rather than interesting only within a laboratory discipline.

Within that frame, the journal publishes significant clinical studies from cancer programmes around the world, along with important translational laboratory findings, mini-reviews, both invited and submitted, and in-depth discussions of evolving and controversial topics in the oncology arena. The international character is part of the title and part of the practice: cancer programmes differ in resources, populations and organisation across countries, and a journal that takes clinical studies from around the world gives its readers a view of what is achievable and what is transferable, rather than a view from a single health system.

The Rapid Phase 1 and Phase 2 Section

Karger singles out one feature as unique to the journal: a section that focuses on rapid peer review and subsequent publication of short reports of phase 1 and phase 2 clinical cancer trials, with the goal of ensuring that high-quality clinical cancer research quickly enters the public domain, regardless of the trial's ultimate conclusions regarding efficacy or toxicity. That last clause is scientifically important. Early-phase trials are prone to a particular form of publication bias: positive, promising results are published, while trials that close early, miss their endpoint or reveal unexpected toxicity disappear from view, even though their data would prevent other groups from repeating the same dose, schedule or patient selection. A journal section that commits in advance to judging early-phase reports on quality rather than on outcome, and to handling them rapidly, is a deliberate counterweight. Authors of phase 1 and phase 2 work should read the current guidelines for that section carefully, because short-report formats carry strict expectations about trial registration, dose and toxicity reporting, and completeness, precisely so that a short paper can still be used by the next trial team.

History and Longevity

Bibliographic listings trace the journal's coverage back to 1948, which places its origins in the first post-war generation of specialist cancer journals, when oncology was separating itself from general medicine, surgery, radiology and pathology into a discipline of its own. A title that has published continuously across that span has recorded, in its own pages, the successive eras of cancer treatment: the establishment of cytotoxic chemotherapy and of combination regimens, the growth of radiotherapy and of combined-modality treatment, the arrival of hormonal and then targeted therapies, the molecular reclassification of tumours, and the immunotherapy era. This profile does not invent a founding editor or a founding narrative for the journal, because no such account is given in the official Karger material consulted; where a fuller institutional history is required, the publisher's archive and the journal's own anniversary editorials are the proper sources. What can be stated on the evidence is the longevity itself, the Basel base of its publisher, and the consistency of its identity: the same title, the same ISSN lineage and the same clinical-translational mission across more than seven decades.

Karger, the publisher, is a long-established Swiss medical and scientific publisher based in Basel, and its journal portfolio places Oncology at the head of a family of cancer titles that includes Breast Care, Liver Cancer, Chemotherapy, Case Reports in Oncology and Oncology Research and Treatment. That portfolio context helps authors choose correctly within one publisher's list: a case report belongs with the case reports title, an organ-specific study may belong with the organ title, and a clinical or translational study of general significance across oncology belongs with Oncology itself.

Scope in Detail

The journal's scope, as set out by Karger and reflected in secondary scope summaries built from its contents, spans the clinical and translational breadth of cancer research and treatment. Clinical research and trials form the core: studies of treatment efficacy, patient outcomes and practice across cancer types, reported to the standards expected of clinical investigation. Translational laboratory findings are in scope where they connect to clinical questions, including biomarkers for prognosis and treatment response and genomic and molecular studies that illuminate the underpinnings of cancer in ways a clinician or a trial designer can use. Innovative therapeutic strategies, including immunotherapy, targeted therapies and combinations, are a natural focus for a journal whose stated purpose is improving the outcome of treatment. Epidemiology and risk-factor work, research on prevention and diagnosis, and studies of technological innovation in diagnosis and treatment also appear in secondary descriptions of the journal's content.

Equally, the boundaries matter. Karger states the scope boundary for its sister clinical title explicitly in terms that also describe the family character: basic research with no clinical or translational connection is not the centre of this list. A purely molecular study with no disease, biomarker or treatment relevance, a clinical audit with no generalisable finding, and a single case with no wider lesson are all weak fits, however competently executed. The strongest submissions to Oncology can answer, in one sentence, the question its aims statement asks: what clinically relevant knowledge of cancer does this paper advance, and how could it improve prevention, diagnosis or treatment?

What the Journal Publishes

Drawing the article types together from the aims statement: significant clinical studies from cancer programmes worldwide; translational laboratory studies; mini-reviews, invited and submitted; in-depth discussions of evolving and controversial topics; and short reports of phase 1 and phase 2 trials in the rapid-review section. Karger's guidelines page for the journal gives the current formats, length expectations and reporting requirements for each type, and authors must follow the version in force at submission, including the reporting standards that apply to clinical trials and to human and animal research. In oncology publishing those standards are not decoration. Trial registration, ethics approval, informed consent, conflict-of-interest disclosure, funding statements and data statements are checked, and a manuscript that omits them will be delayed or returned regardless of its scientific interest.

Editorial Process, Speed and Acceptance

Karger's journal page for Oncology displays a set of service figures that few publishers state so openly: an acceptance rate of 29.20 percent, an average time to first decision of four weeks, and an average time to final decision of six weeks, as displayed at the time this profile was researched. Those figures are reproduced here exactly as displayed and attributed to the Karger page, because they are the publisher's own presentation of its service, and because they will be updated there rather than here. Read together, they describe a selective but fast journal: roughly seven in ten submissions are not accepted, yet authors who do submit receive decisions in weeks rather than months, which matters in a field where trial results age quickly and where the rapid phase 1 and phase 2 section exists precisely to shorten the path from a completed study to the public record. Peer review is conducted through Karger's systems, with editors and reviewers logging in through the publisher's researcher hub, as the journal page directs.

Indexing and Bibliographic Services

Karger's journal portfolio lists the bibliographic services in which Oncology is listed, and the list is extensive. It includes PubMed and MEDLINE from the United States National Library of Medicine; Web of Science and, within it, the Science Citation Index Expanded, Current Contents in Clinical Medicine, Current Contents in Life Sciences and BIOSIS Previews, from Clarivate; Scopus and Embase from Elsevier, together with Pathway Studio; Google Scholar; the Chemical Abstracts Service of the American Chemical Society; EBSCO services including Academic Search, CINAHL Complete and STM Source; ProQuest services including the Health Research Premium Collection, the Medical Database, the Health and Medical Collection and ProQuest Central; and WorldCat from OCLC. For a clinical author, the practical core of that list is MEDLINE, PubMed, Scopus, Embase and the Science Citation Index Expanded: coverage in those services means a paper is findable by clinicians, by systematic reviewers and by guideline writers, which is where clinical influence actually happens. Indexing lists change as services review their coverage, so the portfolio page should be checked at the time of submission for the list then in force.

Metrics in Context

The Karger journal page displays an Impact Factor of 1.9 and a CiteScore of 3.5 for Oncology, reproduced here as displayed at the time of research and without a year attached, because the page consulted does not attach one in the material reproduced. Both figures describe a solid, specialist clinical journal rather than a general medical title, and both should be interpreted within oncology, where citation density differs sharply between laboratory, translational and clinical communities. A phase 2 report that changes the design of the next three trials may be cited modestly and used heavily; a review may be cited heavily and change little. Authors choosing a journal for career or institutional reasons should verify the current Journal Citation Reports and Scopus figures for ISSN 0030-2414 at the time they need them, and should weigh the journal's speed, its MEDLINE coverage and its fit for clinical and translational work alongside any single metric.

Open Access

The Karger portfolio lists Oncology as a journal in which authors can publish open access through the publisher's Author's Choice option. That is a hybrid arrangement: the journal itself is a subscription title, and an individual article can be made openly accessible under the publisher's terms where the author chooses that route and meets its conditions. The current charges, licence options and funder-compliance details for Author's Choice are published by Karger and are not reproduced here, because they change and because a figure that is not publicly disclosed in the sources consulted for a given route should not be guessed. Authors with a funder mandate should confirm, before submission, that the licence Karger offers for this journal satisfies that mandate.

Distinguishing the Many Journals Called Oncology

No section of this profile is more practically useful than this one. The word oncology names a whole field, and publishers have built many titles around it. The American title ONCOLOGY, associated with Cancer Network and aimed at practising oncologists in the United States with reviews and commentary, is a different publication with a different history; an anniversary editorial in that title celebrating four decades of publication refers to that American journal, not to the Karger journal profiled here, whose history reaches back to 1948. Within Karger's own list, Oncology Research and Treatment is a separate, interdisciplinary journal that developed from the German-language Onkologie, founded in 1978, and that states its own aims, including an explicit focus on clinical and translational research and the exclusion of basic research. Oncologie, published in French and English, is another separate title again, as are Annals of Oncology, Acta Oncologica and The Lancet Oncology, each with its own society, publisher and ISSNs. A reference, a submission or a subscription that names only the word Oncology, without the publisher and at least one ISSN, is incomplete. For the journal recorded here, the complete identification is Karger, Basel, ISSN 0030-2414 in print and 1423-0232 online.

Who Should Submit, and How to Judge Fit

The ideal submission to Oncology is a clinical study, a translational study with a clear clinical connection, a focused mini-review, or an early-phase trial report, from any country, that a well-informed oncologist outside the authors' own subspecialty would still find significant. Before submitting, authors should be able to state the clinical relevance of the work in the terms of the aims statement, confirm that the article type exists in the current guidelines, prepare the ethics, registration and disclosure statements the guidelines require, and decide in advance whether the Author's Choice open access route is needed for funder compliance. Work that is preliminary without a translational or clinical hook, work reported to a standard below what a trial or biomarker study requires, and work whose significance is purely local should be directed to a more suitable title first, not because it lacks value, but because this journal's selectivity, displayed by its publisher at under one acceptance in three, will direct it there anyway.

How to Verify This Journal

Verify by ISSN and publisher together: 0030-2414 and 1423-0232, Karger Publishers, Basel, with the journal page on the Karger website carrying the aims statement, the service figures and the submission route reproduced above. Any site offering publication in a journal called Oncology that cannot be reached from the Karger website, that gives different ISSNs, or that promises acceptance in days for a fee, is not this journal, and authors should contact Karger directly through its own site before sending a manuscript or any payment.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the ISSNs of Oncology (Karger)? Print ISSN 0030-2414 and electronic ISSN 1423-0232, as recorded here.

What is its full title? Oncology, subtitled International Journal of Cancer Research and Treatment, as given on the Karger journal information.

What does it publish? Significant clinical studies from cancer programmes around the world, translational laboratory findings, invited and submitted mini-reviews, discussions of evolving and controversial topics, and rapidly reviewed short reports of phase 1 and phase 2 trials, regardless of those trials' conclusions on efficacy or toxicity.

What metrics and service figures does the publisher display? The Karger journal page displays an Impact Factor of 1.9, a CiteScore of 3.5, an acceptance rate of 29.20 percent, an average of four weeks to first decision and six weeks to final decision, as displayed at the time of research.

Where is it indexed? Karger's portfolio lists PubMed, MEDLINE, Web of Science and the Science Citation Index Expanded, Scopus, Embase, Google Scholar and many other services, as detailed in the indexing section above.

How often does it appear? Bibliographic listings give twelve issues a year, and coverage from 1948.

Sources and Editorial Note

This profile is based on Karger's journal page and author guidelines for Oncology, which give the aims and scope, article types, the rapid phase 1 and phase 2 section, and the displayed metrics and decision times; on Karger's journal portfolio entry, which gives the open access option and the bibliographic services list; and on bibliographic listings for coverage from 1948, frequency and the Basel base. The separate histories of the American ONCOLOGY title and of Karger's Onkologie and Oncology Research and Treatment are used only to distinguish those titles from this one, and no fact about them is transferred to this journal. Charges and licence terms that change over time are not frozen here.