The Brazilian Journal of Pulmonology (BJP), originally known as Journal of Pulmonology, was founded in 1975, and its first Editor was Dr. Manoel Lopes dos Santos. Its mission was to be the official organ of a new association of specialty physicians that was being created. Since then, it has been published without interruption.

In October of 1978, the Brazilian Pulmonology Association and the Brazilian Federation of Tuberculosis and Respiratory Disease Associations merged, creating a new association. This new association was named the Brazilian Thoracic Association and adopted the founding date of the Brazilian Federation of Tuberculosis and Respiratory Disease Associations (1937) as its own.

Initially, the BJP was a quarterly publication. From the first editorials, it was evident that it would be difficult to obtain original articles in numbers sufficient to sustain its regular publication. The hard work of many editors over these 37 years, maintaining the periodicity of our Journal, has led it to the position it occupies today. After Dr. Manoel there came Bruno Carlos Palombini; Carlos Frazzatto Junior; José Roberto B. Jardim; Miguel Bogossian (Scientific Secretary: Ana Luisa G. Fernandes); Nelson Morrone (Scientific Secretary: Eliana Sheila Mendes); Carlos Alberto C. Pereira (Scientific Secretaries: Luiz Fernando F. Pereira and Sonia Faresin); Thais A. Queluz (Scientific Secretary: Hugo Bok Yoo); Geraldo Lorenzi Filho (Scientific Secretary: Elnara Márcia Negri); and José Antonio Baddini Martinez. Since 1998, we have had three administrative secretaries: Conceição Silva; Priscilla Bovolenta; and, currently, Luana Campos.

The BJP has gained greater international exposure since 2002, when it was indexed for SciELO, and especially since 2006, when it was indexed for MEDLINE (PubMed). The recognition received by the BJP has culminated with the debut of its first impact factor, which appeared in Journal Citation Reports at the end of last semester. In 2009 and 2010, our Journal published 274 articles, which were cited in 381 articles published in other scientific journals indexed for MEDLINE, resulting in our newly minted impact factor: 1.391. This number is a source of pride for the entire community of researchers working in the field of respiratory diseases in Brazil, as well as being of enormous importance to the Brazilian Thoracic Association, because the BJP is its official journal. This impact factor quantifies the national and international recognition received by our Journal. The impact factor of a journal represents its relative importance within its field. With an impact factor of 1.391, the BJP ranks fourth among the 93 Brazilian scientific journals indexed for the Thomson Reuters Journal Citation Reports database (the Science Citation Index Expanded). Within that context, our impact factor is the third highest in the medical field and the highest among the specialist journals. All this was achieved despite the fact that this is the first time our articles have been evaluated. In the graduate program evaluations conducted in the current triennium by the Brazilian Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES, Office for the Advancement of Higher Education), the BJP was classified as category B2 in Medicine I, which allows 40 points per article published and unlimited inclusion of articles from our Journal.

Our responsibility as Editors has increased tremendously. This result is the outcome of the work of all previous Editors and especially of the researchers who submitted their articles for evaluation by the team of Associate Editors and reviewers who worked over this 37-year period, contributing in a fundamental way to the BJP achieving this recognition.

Now that the BJP has received international recognition, the great challenge that lies ahead is to persevere in our efforts to improve the quality of the articles published, not only to maintain our impact factor but also to increase it. From this point on, the number of articles submitted by national and international researchers tends to grow, and, in this context, the continuous participation of all editors and reviewers is essential for expediting the article review process, which is key for maintaining the quality of a journal on the international stage. Most importantly, we invite all researchers to submit their studies for publication in the BJP.

Although we still have far to go, this has been a very good start.


Carlos Roberto Ribeiro Carvalho
Editor-in-Chief
of the Brazilian Journal of Pulmonology

Bruno Guedes Baldi
Executive Editor
of the Brazilian Journal of Pulmonology

Carlos Viana Poyares Jardim
Executive Editor
of the Brazilian Journal of Pulmonology

Pedro Caruso
Executive Editor
of the Brazilian Journal of Pulmonology