Immunotherapy accepted for coverage in MEDLINE®

Sep 19 2010

Future Medicine Ltd announced today that its journal Immunotherapy (ISSN 1750-743X) has been selected for coverage in MEDLINE®. Maintained by the U.S. National Library of Medicine, MEDLINE® (Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online) is a premier bibliographic database containing approximately 13 million references to journal articles in life sciences.

Immunotherapy is currently published on a bimonthly basis in print and online formats on a rapid publication basis, increasing to monthly (12 issues per year) in 2011, with articles subject to peer review by three independent assessors. The journal has an international expert authorship and offers the scientific community an interdisciplinary forum, providing them a platform for the presentation of new findings together with interpretation of the most recent advances of various aspects of immunotherapeutics to aid navigation of this complex field.

Coverage of the journal is directed by three Senior Editors and an extensive international advisory panel.  The three Senior Editors are Prof Francesco Marincola, National Cancer Institute, NIH, USA; Prof David Wraith, University of Bristol, UK; and Prof Yutaka Kawakami Y, Keio University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan.

The field of immunotherapy is moving forward at an unprecedented rate, and a range of therapeutic approaches are now used in clinical practice, often with outstanding success. The valuable role of immunotherapy in oncology is increasingly recognized alongside conventional chemo- and radio-therapies, and the US Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of immunotherapy in melanoma, leukemias, lymphomas and myelomas, and in breast, cervical, ovarian, kidney, prostate and colorectal cancers. Immunotherapeutics are also being applied in a variety of other disease areas, including allergy, rheumatoid disease, autoimmunity and transplantation, as well as in many infections, such as HIV/AIDS and hepatitis.

Many aspects of the immune system and mechanisms of immune-modulated therapies remain to be elucidated in order to exploit fully the emerging opportunities. Those involved in the research and clinical applications of immunotherapy are challenged by the huge and intricate volumes of knowledge arising from this fast-evolving field. Immunotherapy offers the scientific community an interdisciplinary forum, providing them with concise and most recent advances of various aspects of immunotherapeutics to aid navigation of this complex field.

Senior Editor Prof. Francesco Marincola commented: “The acceptance of Immunotherapy for indexing by Medline® represents an important step in the evolution of this journal and corresponds to an expanding interest in this field. This year has been a special one for tumor immunotherapy with the first anti-cancer vaccine licensed by the Food and Drug Administration and the publication of several manuscript or oral presentations reporting improved survival of patients with cancer treated with immunotherapeutic agents in phase three studies. At the same time, this year marked major progress in the understanding of viral immunotherapy with discovery of genetic factors such as interferon-lamba that could predict immune responsiveness. Thus, together with the treatment past success of immunotherapy in the treatment of autoimmune disease, this area of investigation is growing of age in several fields and this journal is becoming increasingly relevant not only to a specialized audience but to clinicians, scientists, patients and their families interested in updates during these exciting moments.”

He continues…”This milestone reflects the increased appreciation for the relevance of this area of investigation in the clinical arena as we will continue to encourage the publication of articles at the cutting edge of discovery with the intent of enhancing the efficiency of the translation of basic research discoveries into new therapeutic strategies that could benefit a large population of patients. Indexing in Medline will provide Immunotherapy greater reach into communities of practice to facilitate communication of advances in biomarker science and regulation, and debate of their utility to maximize their impact on the practice of medicine around the world.“

Elisa Manzotti, Editorial Director of the Future Medicine series commented, “This field has emerged as a real focus of attention in the past few years. We are delighted that Immunotherapy has been accepted for inclusion and will work with the Senior Editors of the journal to ensure that future issues of Immunotherapy keep pace with the huge amount of research being generated.” She continued: “We would like to thank our Senior Editors and Editorial Board for their hard work, intellectual input and guidance in targeting and evaluating topical, pioneering content to ensure inclusion of the journal in MEDLINE®.”

The National Library of Medicine MEDLINE® selection process is managed by an advisory committee, the Literature Selection Technical Review Committee, composed of authorities knowledgeable in the field of biomedicine, such as physicians, researchers, educators, editors, health science librarians and historians, to review and recommend the journal titles NLM should index. MEDLINE® is searchable for free using PubMed at http://pubmed.gov.

Access to Immunotherapy is also currently available via free 30-day trial. To apply for your free trial please email [email protected] quoting reference IMT0910 to obtain password access.