The Lancet Respiratory Medicine

About The Lancet Respiratory Medicine

The Lancet Respiratory Medicine: Journal Overview

The Lancet Respiratory Medicine is a monthly international specialty journal published by Elsevier as part of The Lancet Group, headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It describes itself on its official website as "the world-leading respiratory medicine and critical care journal" (source: thelancet.com/lanres/about, accessed October 2026). The journal publishes original research and informative reviews covering every aspect of respiratory medicine and critical care — from asthma, COPD and tuberculosis to intensive care medicine, lung cancer, and respiratory infections.

The journal's standing is reflected in the citation metrics published on The Lancet Group's official metrics page. For the 2024 Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate 2025), The Lancet Respiratory Medicine reported a Journal Impact Factor of 34.7, a 5-year Impact Factor of 34.2, a CiteScore of 48.1, and an Immediacy Index of 16.2 (source: thelancet.com/journal-impact-metrics, accessed October 2026). It is a hybrid journal: content is published under a subscription model, with a gold open access option for authors whose funding requires it (source: thelancet.com/lanres/about).

Launched in March 2013, the journal is one of the younger titles in The Lancet Group's specialty-journal portfolio, yet it has become the flagship venue for high-impact clinical respiratory research. During the COVID-19 pandemic it published some of the earliest and most-cited studies on critically ill patients with SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia, cementing its influence well beyond the respiratory specialty.

History of The Lancet Respiratory Medicine

The Lancet Respiratory Medicine launched in March 2013 as the fourth Lancet specialty journal, following in the footsteps of The Lancet Oncology, The Lancet Neurology, and The Lancet Infectious Diseases (source: askbisht.com journal profile, citing launch history). Its founding Editor-in-Chief is Emma Grainger, who had joined The Lancet Group in 2005 as a Senior Editor at The Lancet Oncology and became its Deputy Editor in 2008 before taking on the new respiratory title (source: thelancet.com/lanres/about).

The journal was created to give respiratory medicine and critical care a dedicated home within The Lancet family — a place for original research that could change clinical practice and for reviews and commentary that shape the field. Grainger noted in her official biography that the journal recently celebrated its 10-year anniversary, marking a decade of growth from a new launch to one of the most-cited journals in its field (source: thelancet.com/lanres/about).

Key milestones in the journal's history include its rapid rise in citation metrics through the 2010s, its central role in publishing early COVID-19 respiratory research in 2020 (including landmark studies of critically ill patients in Wuhan and the pathology of COVID-19-associated ARDS), and its 10th anniversary in 2023, marked by a special editorial, "Past learnings and new beginnings in the digital age" (source: podtail.com podcast listing, "Emma Grainger on 10 years of The Lancet Respiratory Medicine").

Today the journal sits alongside more than a dozen Lancet specialty titles — including The Lancet Oncology, The Lancet Neurology, The Lancet Infectious Diseases, The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology and The Lancet Digital Health — as part of a portfolio whose metrics page it shares with the flagship The Lancet (source: thelancet.com/journal-impact-metrics).

Leadership and Editorial Team

The current Editor-in-Chief of The Lancet Respiratory Medicine is Emma Grainger, who has led the journal since its launch in March 2013. According to her official biography on thelancet.com, Grainger completed a degree and a masters in Biochemistry at the University of Oxford, earned a masters in Biotechnology from University College London, and holds a doctorate on cancer viruses from St Mary's Medical School, Imperial College London. She held a postdoctoral post at the Institute of Cancer Research linked to the Brompton Hospital in London, then entered publishing in 1999 at Elsevier as a Scientific Editor for The European Journal of Cancer. She joined The Lancet Group in 2005 as a Senior Editor at The Lancet Oncology, becoming Deputy Editor in 2008, and has also held Acting Executive Editor roles at The Lancet Haematology and eClinicalMedicine (source: thelancet.com/lanres/about, accessed October 2026).

The listed Deputy Editor is Bianca Brandon, based with The Lancet Group in London (source: thelancet.com/lanres/about). The journal is staffed by full-time professional editors at The Lancet Group's London office, following the Lancet editorial model in which the Editor-in-Chief is the final arbitrator of all decisions — from the decision to take a paper to peer review, to the final decision in light of reviewers' remarks, to consideration of appeals (source: thelancet.com/lanres/about).

The Lancet Group's stated editorial governance rules include that editors may not submit research articles to Lancet journals, and that editors must exclude themselves from decisions on papers they have authored, papers by family members or colleagues, or papers connected to institutions, products or services in which they have a vested interest. The Lancet journals are signatories of the ICMJE Recommendations and the COPE code of conduct for editors (source: thelancet.com/lanres/about).

Aims & Scope

According to the journal's official "About" page, The Lancet Respiratory Medicine publishes original research that advocates change in, or illuminates, clinical practice, together with informative reviews on any topic connected with respiratory medicine and critical care (source: thelancet.com/lanres/about, accessed October 2026). In practice, the scope covers:

• Chronic respiratory disease: asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), cystic fibrosis, pulmonary hypertension, pulmonary vascular disease.
• Respiratory infections: pneumonia, tuberculosis, influenza, respiratory infections broadly, sepsis.
• Critical care: acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), intensive care medicine, mechanical ventilation, sepsis.
• Thoracic oncology and surgery: lung cancer, mesothelioma, thoracic and reconstructive surgery.
• Other areas: tobacco control, sleep medicine, sarcoidosis, palliative medicine, and environmental and occupational lung disease.

The journal publishes a range of article types encompassing all aspects of respiratory medicine and critical care, including Articles, Reviews, Personal Views, Comments, and News. It also publishes Series and Commissions intended to shape and drive positive change in clinical practice and health policy in areas of need in respiratory medicine and critical care (source: thelancet.com/lanres/about). Fast-track publication is available for papers of immediate public health or clinical importance, or where timed publication has been agreed.

Editorial Process and Peer Review

The Lancet Group's official description of its editorial process states that the Editor-in-Chief is the final arbitrator of all decisions on each Lancet journal — including whether to take a paper to peer review, the decision to publish or reject in light of the peer reviewers' remarks, journal scope and commissioning, consideration of appeals, general enquiries, and editorial priorities (source: thelancet.com/lanres/about).

How manuscripts are handled:

1. Initial editorial assessment. Editors first assess whether a submission falls within the journal's scope and has the potential to influence clinical practice or policy. Manuscripts that do not meet this bar are declined without external review.
2. External peer review. Manuscripts judged to have potential are sent for peer review by independent experts, consistent with the ICMJE and COPE standards the Lancet journals subscribe to.
3. Editorial decision. The editors weigh the reviewers' advice against the journal's criteria — original research that advocates change in or illuminates clinical practice — and the Editor-in-Chief makes the final decision.
4. Appeals. The Lancet Group states that if an author believes an editor has made an error in declining a paper, appeals are considered; the EIC considers appeals as part of their role (sources: thelancet.com/lanres/about; Lancet Information for Authors PDFs).

What the journal does not publish: The Lancet Respiratory Medicine does not publish an acceptance rate on its website, and it does not publish submission-to-decision timelines. A third-party journal directory lists an acceptance rate of 22% (countryofpapers.com), but this figure is not from the journal or publisher and should be treated with caution. Prospective authors should rely on the journal's official guidance rather than aggregator estimates.

Impact and Metrics

The following metrics are published on The Lancet Group's official journal metrics page and refer to the 2024 Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate 2025) unless noted (source: thelancet.com/journal-impact-metrics, accessed October 2026).

Historical note: The journal's Impact Factor rose sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic years, reflecting the enormous citation volume attracted by early COVID-19 respiratory research — several third-party trackers show the IF in the mid-30s through 2021–2022 before normalising. Earlier in its history the journal was already ranked number one in the critical care and respiratory medicine categories (2019 Journal Citation Reports, Impact Factor 25.094; source: thelimbic.com). Third-party journal directories display widely differing figures for the journal (e.g., research.com shows 32.8; journalsinsights.com shows 52.5 for "2026-2027"; scijournal.org shows 9.42 for 2025), which reflects different metric years, sources and methodologies — and in some cases unreliable estimates. The figures on The Lancet Group's own metrics page above are the authoritative ones.

As with all citation metrics, the Journal Impact Factor reflects citations to the journal's citable items over a two-year window and is not a measure of the quality of any individual article — readers should consider the full range of metrics above.

Submission Guidelines

The Lancet Respiratory Medicine receives manuscripts through the journal's online editorial submission system, linked from the journal homepage at thelancet.com/journals/lanres (source: thelancet.com/lanres/about). Authors are directed to the journal's Information for Authors and to the specific article-type pages before submitting. Key points from the official guidance:

• Article types: The journal invites Articles (original research), Reviews, Personal Views, Comments, and News. Series and Commissions are typically commissioned by the editors rather than submitted unsolicited — authors interested in proposing a Series should contact the editorial office.
• What editors look for: Original research that advocates change in, or illuminates, clinical practice; reviews and commentary that are informative and relevant to respiratory medicine and critical care.
• Fast-track option: Fast-track publication is available for papers of immediate public health or clinical importance, or where timed publication has been agreed (source: thelancet.com/lanres/about).
• Presubmission enquiries: The Lancet Group's journals generally welcome presubmission enquiries for original research; authors should check the journal-specific instructions on the website.
• Ethical and reporting standards: As an ICMJE and COPE signatory, the journal expects adherence to the ICMJE Recommendations, appropriate clinical-trial registration, and relevant reporting guidelines (such as CONSORT for randomised trials).
• Transfers: If a paper is not accepted by one Lancet journal, editors may judge it suitable to pass to other editors in the Lancet Group for consideration, or to other Elsevier portfolio journals (per Lancet Information for Authors).

Because detailed formatting requirements (word limits, reference counts, display-item limits) differ by article type and are updated periodically, authors should consult the current Information for Authors for the specific journal before preparing a submission.

Open Access and APC

The Lancet Respiratory Medicine is a hybrid journal. According to its official "About" page, it "offers authors of original research with funding that requires open access publication either a gold open access or a subscription green open access solution for their submission" — i.e., open access in the hybrid Lancet titles is available to authors whose research is funded by specific funders with whom the Lancet Group has agreements (source: thelancet.com/lanres/about, accessed October 2026).

Article processing charge: The Lancet Group publishes its open access charges on the official open access page (thelancet.com/open-access, accessed October 2026). As of 1 January 2026, the APC for The Lancet Respiratory Medicine is USD 8,810 — the same as most of the other hybrid Lancet specialty journals (The Lancet Oncology, The Lancet Neurology, The Lancet Infectious Diseases and others), and slightly below The Lancet itself (USD 9,550). APC figures change over time, so readers should verify the current charges on The Lancet's official open access page before relying on any number.

Eligibility and funding routes: The official open access page lays out when APCs apply. Original research may be eligible for gold open access where the corresponding author is affiliated with an institution with which the Lancet Group has an agreement, or where the research was funded by a funding body with such an agreement (eligibility is conditional on the specific journal being included in the agreement). Reviews and Reports are rarely included in institutional agreements, and Opinion, News and Discussion pieces are not eligible. The APC is payable for all full-length peer-reviewed article types upon acceptance, and the Information for Authors notes that the Lancet Group aims to make it possible to publish accepted papers, offering support through discounts and waivers in qualifying circumstances (sources: thelancet.com/open-access; Lancet Information for Authors PDFs).

Landmark Papers Published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine

Despite being launched only in 2013, the journal has published several of the most-cited papers of the COVID-19 era, alongside influential respiratory and critical-care research. Among the most notable (citation counts per research.com's journal analytics, accessed October 2026):

• Yang X, Yu Y, Xu J, et al. "Clinical course and outcomes of critically ill patients with SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia in Wuhan, China: a single-centered, retrospective, observational study." Published online in February 2020 (doi:10.1016/S2213-2600(20)30079-5), this was one of the earliest detailed descriptions of critically ill COVID-19 patients — reporting 52 patients admitted to the ICU of Wuhan Jin Yin-tan Hospital — and became one of the most-cited respiratory papers of the pandemic (approximately 5,167 citations per research.com).
• Xu Z, Shi L, Wang Y, et al. "Pathological findings of COVID-19 associated with acute respiratory distress syndrome." Published in April 2020, this early case report of the lung pathology of COVID-19-associated ARDS attracted approximately 4,545 citations and informed early understanding of the disease's respiratory pathology (source: research.com journal analytics).
• Grasselli G, Tonetti T, Protti A, et al. "Pathophysiology of COVID-19-associated acute respiratory distress syndrome: a multicentre prospective observational study." Published in 2020, this multicentre study (approximately 8,1201–1208 in volume 8) examined the respiratory physiology of COVID-19 ARDS and contributed to the debate over COVID-19 phenotypes and ventilation strategies (cited in MDPI systematic review reference lists).
• Are patients with hypertension and diabetes mellitus at increased risk for COVID-19 infection? (2020) — approximately 1,607 citations, one of the early papers examining comorbidities and COVID-19 risk (source: research.com journal analytics).

Beyond COVID-19, the journal has published influential Series — including work on asthma and on tobacco control and lung health — and Commissions designed to drive change in clinical practice and health policy (source: thelancet.com/lanres/about). Its tenth-anniversary editorial in the January 2023 issue, Past learnings and new beginnings in the digital age, reviewed the journal's trajectory and its ambitions for the second decade.

The Lancet Family

The Lancet Respiratory Medicine is published by Elsevier as part of The Lancet Group — the family of journals headed by the flagship The Lancet (founded 1823), one of the world's most-cited general medical journals. The Group's specialty journals share a common editorial philosophy (original research that changes clinical practice, ICMJE/COPE standards, EIC-led editorial decision-making) and a common metrics and open access framework, published on thelancet.com (sources: thelancet.com/journal-impact-metrics; thelancet.com/open-access).

Sister specialty journals include The Lancet Oncology, The Lancet Neurology, The Lancet Infectious Diseases, The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology, The Lancet Global Health, The Lancet Haematology, The Lancet HIV, The Lancet Psychiatry, The Lancet Public Health, The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, The Lancet Digital Health, The Lancet Rheumatology, The Lancet Planetary Health, The Lancet Healthy Longevity, The Lancet Microbe, and eClinicalMedicine — the latter a fully open-access title (source: thelancet.com/journal-impact-metrics table).

The portfolio model shapes editorial practice: manuscripts not accepted by one Lancet journal may be offered transfer to another Lancet editor or to a relevant journal within Elsevier's portfolio, with reviewers' input carried forward where appropriate (per Lancet Information for Authors).

Key Facts

Frequently Asked Questions

What is The Lancet Respiratory Medicine?

The Lancet Respiratory Medicine is a monthly international journal published by Elsevier as part of The Lancet Group. It calls itself "the world-leading respiratory medicine and critical care journal," publishing original research and reviews intended to change or illuminate clinical practice across respiratory medicine and critical care (source: thelancet.com/lanres/about).

When was The Lancet Respiratory Medicine founded?

The journal launched in March 2013 as the fourth Lancet specialty journal, after The Lancet Oncology, The Lancet Neurology, and The Lancet Infectious Diseases. It celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2023 (sources: thelancet.com/lanres/about; askbisht.com journal profile).

Who is the Editor-in-Chief of The Lancet Respiratory Medicine?

Emma Grainger, the journal's founding Editor-in-Chief since March 2013. She previously served as Senior Editor and then Deputy Editor of The Lancet Oncology (from 2008), and holds a doctorate on cancer viruses from St Mary's Medical School, Imperial College London (source: thelancet.com/lanres/about).

What is the journal's impact factor?

According to The Lancet Group's official metrics page, the Journal Impact Factor is 34.7 (2024 JCR, Clarivate 2025), with a 5-year Impact Factor of 34.2 and a CiteScore of 48.1. Third-party aggregators show differing figures for other years and should not be cited ahead of the publisher's official JCR-based numbers (source: thelancet.com/journal-impact-metrics, accessed October 2026).

What is the acceptance rate of The Lancet Respiratory Medicine?

The journal does not publish an acceptance rate on its website or in its author guidance. A third-party directory lists 22%, but this is not an official figure and should be treated with caution. The Lancet Group describes a highly selective editorial-assessment process in which the Editor-in-Chief is the final arbitrator.

Is The Lancet Respiratory Medicine open access?

It is a hybrid journal: subscription-based by default, with a gold open access option for authors of original research whose funding requires open access publication, subject to eligibility conditions (institutional or funder agreements with the Lancet Group) (source: thelancet.com/lanres/about).

What is the article processing charge (APC)?

The official open access page lists the APC for The Lancet Respiratory Medicine at USD 8,810 as of 1 January 2026. APCs change over time — always verify the current figure on thelancet.com/open-access (source: thelancet.com/open-access, accessed October 2026).

How do I submit a manuscript?

Manuscripts are submitted through the journal's online editorial submission system, linked from the journal homepage at thelancet.com/journals/lanres. Authors should read the journal's Information for Authors first; fast-track publication is available for papers of immediate public health or clinical importance (source: thelancet.com/lanres/about).

How does peer review work at the journal?

Submissions first undergo editorial assessment; those judged to have potential are sent for external peer review by independent experts. The Editor-in-Chief is the final arbitrator of all decisions, and the journal follows the ICMJE Recommendations and the COPE code of conduct for editors. The Lancet Group also permits authors to appeal a rejection they believe was an error (sources: thelancet.com/lanres/about; Lancet Information for Authors).

What kinds of papers does the journal publish?

Articles (original research), Reviews, Personal Views, Comments, and News — plus editor-commissioned Series and Commissions aimed at changing clinical practice and health policy in areas of need. Topics span asthma, ARDS, COPD, tobacco control, intensive care, lung cancer, cystic fibrosis, pneumonia, sarcoidosis, sepsis, mesothelioma, sleep medicine, thoracic surgery, tuberculosis, palliative medicine, influenza, pulmonary hypertension, and respiratory infections (source: thelancet.com/lanres/about).

What are the journal's most famous papers?

Some of the most-cited papers of the COVID-19 pandemic appeared in the journal, including Yang X et al.'s February 2020 study of critically ill patients with SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia in Wuhan (one of the earliest detailed ICU cohort studies) and Xu Z et al.'s April 2020 report on the pathological findings of COVID-19-associated ARDS (sources: research.com journal analytics; PMC citation records).

Who publishes The Lancet Respiratory Medicine?

Elsevier, through The Lancet Group based in London, UK. It is one of more than a dozen Lancet specialty journals headed by the flagship The Lancet (sources: thelancet.com/journal-impact-metrics; thelancet.com/lanres/about).

Where is the journal indexed?

The journal's citation metrics appear in Clarivate's Journal Citation Reports (Impact Factor 34.7, 2024) and Scopus's CiteScore (48.1), confirming its coverage in the Web of Science and Scopus databases — the standard biomedical indexes (source: thelancet.com/journal-impact-metrics).

Profile compiled October 2026 from official The Lancet Group and Elsevier sources listed below. Metrics, fees and policies change over time — always verify current figures on the journal's official pages before citing or acting on them.