About Chinese Journal of Andrology

Chinese Journal of Andrology

Overview and identity

The Chinese Journal of Andrology is a Chinese-language medical journal devoted to andrology — the medicine of male reproductive and sexual health — published in Shanghai, China, by Renji Hospital, which is affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine. It is identified by ISSN 1008-0848 and is published monthly. It has been published since 1986, originally under the former title Nanxingxue Zazhi, a name it carried until 1997. In the scholarly literature on Chinese andrology it is described as one of China's three core andrology journals, alongside the National Journal of Andrology and the Asian Journal of Andrology.

Andrology is a small specialty with a large patient base. Male infertility affects a substantial share of couples investigated for infertility, prostate diseases are among the commonest conditions of ageing men, and erectile dysfunction and other sexual health problems are frequent reasons for consultation that patients often find difficult to raise. A dedicated national journal gives the specialists who treat these conditions — andrologists, urologists, reproductive medicine physicians and researchers — a shared Chinese-language literature in which diagnostic standards, surgical and medical treatments and laboratory methods can be reported and debated.

History: from Nanxingxue Zazhi to the present title

The journal's history begins in 1986 under the title Nanxingxue Zazhi, which can be rendered as Journal of Andrology or, literally, journal of masculinity studies in the medical sense. It published under that former title until 1997, when it took the name Chinese Journal of Andrology, the title it retains today. A foundation date of 1986 makes it one of the earlier specialist periodicals of modern Chinese andrology, a field whose own literature notes that modern andrology in China had a comparatively late start despite the long history of male sexual health and infertility in traditional Chinese medicine.

The journal's timeline parallels the institutional growth of its specialty. The Chinese Andrology Association was founded in 1995, during this journal's first decade under its original title, and branches of the association were subsequently established in 23 provinces. Andrology also came to be covered by the Chinese Urology Association, the Chinese Sexual Medicine Association and traditional medicine bodies. Through that whole period of professional organisation, this journal — first as Nanxingxue Zazhi and then as the Chinese Journal of Andrology — provided a continuous periodical record, appearing monthly in its modern form.

Publisher and editorial home: Renji Hospital, Shanghai

The journal is published by Renji Hospital, affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, in Shanghai. Renji Hospital is one of Shanghai's major university teaching hospitals, with campuses including its east campus in Pudong, and it is a substantial clinical and research institution in its own right, known among other things for high-volume transplant and urological surgery programmes; its urology department publishes reconstructive and andrology-related surgical research in the international literature. A hospital-based publisher gives the journal a clinical centre of gravity: its editorial home sits inside the kind of institution where its readers practise.

Shanghai is also the natural home of Chinese andrology publishing more broadly. The Asian Journal of Andrology, the English-language international title discussed below, is sponsored by the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica of the Chinese Academy of Sciences together with Shanghai Jiao Tong University — the same university system to which Renji Hospital belongs. The Chinese Journal of Andrology is the Chinese-language, clinically oriented member of that Shanghai-centred family.

One of three core andrology journals

The journal's standing is best documented by the review literature of its own field. The article Andrology in China: current status and 10 years' progress, published in the Asian Journal of Andrology in 2011 (volume 13, pages 512-518) by authors at Peking University Third Hospital, states plainly that there are three core journals in Chinese andrology: the National Journal of Andrology, the Asian Journal of Andrology and the Chinese Journal of Andrology. For a directory profile, that expert characterisation is the key verified fact about the journal's rank: within a small specialty, it is one of the three titles that the field itself treats as core.

The three titles are distinct and should not be merged. The Asian Journal of Andrology, founded in 1999, is an English-language, open-access international journal and the official journal of the Asian Society of Andrology, with ISSN 1008-682X — close to, but different from, this journal's ISSN 1008-0848, a one-block difference that makes careful citation essential. The National Journal of Andrology is a separate Chinese title. The Chinese Journal of Andrology is the Shanghai, Renji Hospital-published, Chinese-language monthly founded in 1986.

Scope: infertility, prostate disease and sexual health

The journal covers male infertility, prostate disease and male sexual health, the three clinical pillars named in its directory record and confirmed by the field's review literature, which organises Chinese andrology's progress around erectile dysfunction, prostate diseases, male infertility and male hormonal contraception. Male infertility coverage spans semen analysis and laboratory diagnosis, varicocele and other treatable causes, assisted reproduction interfaces and genetic factors. Prostate coverage spans benign prostatic disease and prostate cancer as they present to andrologists and urologists. Sexual health coverage includes erectile dysfunction diagnosis and treatment and related conditions, while the wider field the journal serves also encompasses late-onset hypogonadism and hormonal approaches to male contraception, both named in the national guideline work described next.

The guideline context: the Chinese Andrology Association

Although the association's guidelines are documents of the Chinese Andrology Association rather than of this journal alone, they form part of the verified professional world the journal serves and reports. The association, founded in 1995, issued in 2007 its first-edition guidelines on erectile dysfunction, male infertility and late-onset hypogonadism. Those three subjects map closely onto the journal's own scope, and their existence explains much of the journal's content: once a national association sets diagnostic and treatment standards, its specialty's core journals become the places where the evidence behind the standards, and the audits and studies that test them, are published and discussed. The 2011 review that names this journal as a core title treats the journals, the association, its provincial branches and its training courses as parts of a single supporting structure for the specialty's growth.

Frequency, language and citation practice

The journal is monthly and published in Chinese, serving the practising Chinese andrology and urology community directly. Monthly frequency in a small specialty indicates a steady flow of clinical and laboratory manuscripts nationally. For citation, the essential identifiers are the exact title, Chinese Journal of Andrology, and ISSN 1008-0848; pre-1998 citations may appear under the former title Nanxingxue Zazhi for the same continuing journal, and indexers and librarians treat the two titles as one serial with a title change in 1997. Authors should take particular care not to substitute the Asian Journal of Andrology's ISSN 1008-682X, which differs by only a few digits and belongs to the separate English-language title.

Readership and professional role

The journal's readers are andrologists, urologists, reproductive medicine specialists, laboratory scientists working on semenology and male reproductive biology, and clinicians in sexual medicine across China. Its professional role is that of a core national forum: a place where a geographically dispersed specialty, organised since 1995 through a national association and its provincial branches, shares diagnostic practice, treatment results and research in its working language. Renji Hospital's role as publisher anchors that forum in one of Shanghai's leading teaching hospitals, while its authorship and readership are national.

Why the journal matters

The Chinese Journal of Andrology matters on verified grounds alone. It has published continuously since 1986, longer than its specialty's national association has existed. It survived and documented the professionalisation of Chinese andrology, changing its name in 1997 as the field took modern shape. It is published monthly from Renji Hospital of Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, and the field's own review literature counts it among China's three core andrology journals. For male infertility, prostate disease and male sexual health in China, ISSN 1008-0848 is one of the serials a serious directory must record accurately — distinct from its two sister core titles, and traceable through its former title to its 1986 beginning.