About Aktuelle Rheumatologie

Aktuelle Rheumatologie

Aktuelle Rheumatologie is a German-language specialist journal for rheumatology, published in Stuttgart by the Georg Thieme Verlag. Appearing six times a year and now in its 51st volume, it presents itself as the practitioner's forum in rheumatology — practice-relevant and informative. The journal publishes original and review papers with the key findings of international rheumatology research, alongside the "Für Sie notiert" section of short reports and the "Medizin & Markt" section on pharmaceutical and medical-technology news. It reaches all rheumatologists in Germany as well as interested orthopedists, internists and rehabilitation physicians, with a print run of around 4,000 copies.

Overview

Aktuelle Rheumatologie serves the physicians who diagnose and treat rheumatic diseases: internist and orthopedic rheumatologists in clinics and practices, plus the rehabilitation physicians, internists and orthopedists whose work touches the field. Rheumatology is a specialty defined by chronic inflammatory diseases — rheumatoid arthritis, spondyloarthritis, connective-tissue diseases, vasculitis — whose treatment has been transformed over the past two decades by biologic and targeted synthetic therapies. Keeping up with that therapeutic revolution, while managing the daily realities of chronic-disease care, is the journal's reason for being.

The editorial program is built around practice relevance. Original papers deliver the decisive findings of international research; review articles and focus topics provide regular overviews of the topics that matter in daily practice; broad clinical reporting keeps readers informed across the specialty. The "Für Sie notiert" (noted for you) rubric collects short reports on rheumatology news in digestible form, while "Medizin & Markt" (medicine and market) tracks novelties in the pharmaceutical and medical-technology industries — new approvals, new devices, new study data with commercial relevance. The "Forum der Industrie" offers a press service for industry topics. Together, these formats give the practicing rheumatologist a single source for science, news and market developments.

Published in German under a hybrid model (ISSN print 0341-051X, online 1438-9940), the journal appears six times per year. Its impact factor of 0.1 (2025) is typical of practice-oriented specialist journals, whose mission is education and professional communication rather than high-impact primary research. The publisher's media data emphasizes the journal's complete coverage of the German rheumatology audience — a compact, well-defined readership that makes it an efficient advertising medium for the rheumatology pharmaceutical and medtech industries, where reaching every relevant prescriber matters more than raw circulation numbers.

History

Aktuelle Rheumatologie was founded in the mid-1970s by the Thieme-Verlag in Stuttgart — the 2026 volume is numbered as the 51st year, placing the founding around 1976. The timing coincided with rheumatology's emergence as a distinct specialty in Germany: the founding of the German Society for Rheumatology, the development of structured rheumatological training, and the establishment of specialized rheumatology departments and practices. The journal provided the new specialty with its German-language forum.

The journal's first decades accompanied the slow, steady progress of antirheumatic therapy — from corticosteroids and conventional disease-modifying drugs to the biologic revolution that began around the turn of the millennium with TNF inhibitors and has since produced an expanding arsenal of targeted therapies. Each wave of therapeutic innovation generated new questions for practice — patient selection, safety monitoring, treatment sequencing, biosimilars — and the journal documented them for the German readership. The editorial leadership evolved with the field; the current editors named in the publisher's media data are H.-D. Carl, E. Feist and G. Keyßer, working with Thieme's professional editorial staff.

Through the consolidation of German medical publishing and the digital transformation of the 2010s and 2020s, the journal maintained its six-issue rhythm and its positioning as the practice-oriented forum of German rheumatology, adding the digital services — e-journals, archive access, CME portal — that now complement the print issues. The COVID-19 pandemic years, which disrupted congresses and face-to-face training across medicine, reinforced the role of journals as continuing-education channels, a shift from which practice-oriented titles with digital training infrastructure benefited in particular.

Coverage and Content

Each issue delivers the journal's characteristic mix. Originalarbeiten (original papers) present practice-relevant scientific findings from international rheumatology research — clinical studies, registry data, therapeutic advances. Übersichtsarbeiten (reviews) and Schwerpunktthemen (focus topics) offer regular overviews of the key topics of daily practice: the management of rheumatoid arthritis, spondyloarthritis and psoriatic arthritis, vasculitis and connective-tissue diseases, osteoporosis in rheumatic patients, and the expanding role of imaging in diagnosis and monitoring.

The "Für Sie notiert" rubric provides numerous short reports on rheumatology news — study results, guideline updates, congress highlights — in a format designed for rapid reading. "Medizin & Markt" covers novelties from the pharmaceutical and medical-technology industries, keeping practitioners informed about new products and their clinical context. Broad clinical reporting ("breite klinische Berichterstattung") ensures coverage across the specialty's subspecialties. The "Forum der Industrie" presents industry press information on relevant topics.

Thematically, the journal tracks rheumatology's current agenda: treat-to-target strategies, the expanding use of JAK inhibitors and other targeted therapies, biosimilars, the management of comorbidities, pregnancy in rheumatic disease, and the organizational questions of rheumatological care — early arthritis clinics, interdisciplinary collaboration with orthopedics and dermatology, and the care of a growing patient population with limited specialist numbers.

Organization and Ownership

Aktuelle Rheumatologie is published by the Georg Thieme Verlag KG in Stuttgart, one of Germany's leading medical and scientific publishers. The editors named by the publisher are H.-D. Carl, E. Feist and G. Keyßer — academic rheumatologists who guarantee the journal's scientific standards — working alongside Thieme's professional publishing staff. This editor-publisher model is standard for German medical journals, combining academic authority with professional media production.

Commercially, the journal follows the specialist medical-journal model: subscriptions (personal and institutional, print with online access), single-issue and article sales, and open-access publication fees under the hybrid model. Advertising is a significant pillar: with a print run of 4,036 copies reaching essentially the entire German rheumatology community plus adjacent specialties, the journal offers pharmaceutical and medtech advertisers concentrated access to their key audience. The publisher's rate card details display formats, inserts, advertorials and special advertising forms, alongside content services such as reprints and study recommendations. The Thieme Media unit markets the title to business customers as the efficient route to rheumatology decision-makers.

Digital Presence

The journal's digital home is its Thieme e-journal platform, where subscribers access current issues and the archive of all issues published since 2000. The eRef app extends access to mobile devices with offline reading, and the Thieme CME portal provides the continuing-education infrastructure linked to the journal's training content. The connect.thieme.com platform presents the journal's profile and manuscript-submission options to prospective authors.

The journal's content is indexed in Scopus and other databases, bringing its articles to international researchers — the journal's metrics include a CiteScore and SJR ranking in the rheumatology category. For the German readership, the digital channels deliver the "Für Sie notiert" currency between print issues and make the archive searchable for clinical questions — a rheumatologist checking the latest evidence on a therapeutic strategy can retrieve the relevant review within seconds. After fifty years in print, Aktuelle Rheumatologie operates as a hybrid publication serving a clearly defined professional community: the six print issues provide the forum's rhythm and identity, while the digital platforms deliver the speed, searchability and training functions that modern rheumatology practice demands, today and in the years ahead, as the specialty continues to evolve and new therapies reach the clinic, year after year.