About Chinese Journal of Cancer Research

Chinese Journal of Cancer Research

Overview and identity

The Chinese Journal of Cancer Research (CJCR) is an English-language, peer-reviewed, open-access oncology journal published in Beijing, China. It is supervised by the China Association for Science and Technology, sponsored by the Chinese Anti-Cancer Association, and owned and published by Chinese Journal of Cancer Research Co., Ltd. together with Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute. The journal is published bimonthly in English from its editorial home at No. 52 Fucheng Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100142. It is identified by print ISSN 1000-9604, online ISSN 1993-0631 and Chinese domestic number CN 11-2591/R, and its standard abbreviation is Chin J Cancer Res. Bibliographic records date its publication history to the late 1980s, with Scopus coverage beginning in 1988 and publication start years of 1988–1989 recorded in journal directories, giving it one of the longest histories of any English-language oncology journal published in China. It is devoted to the life sciences and medical sciences as they bear on cancer.

Ownership and institutional home

The journal's ownership structure is unusual and worth recording precisely. Its own statement of identity says that CJCR is supervised by the China Association for Science and Technology — the national umbrella body for China's scientific societies — sponsored by the Chinese Anti-Cancer Association, China's national oncology society, and owned and published jointly by a dedicated publishing company, Chinese Journal of Cancer Research Co., Ltd., and Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute. Peking University Cancer Hospital, also known as Beijing Cancer Hospital, is one of China's leading specialist cancer hospitals and research institutes, and its Fucheng Road address in Haidian District is the journal's official address. This arrangement gives the journal both society sponsorship and a direct institutional anchor in a major comprehensive cancer centre, whose clinical departments supply editors, reviewers and a substantial share of its research content.

Scope and subject coverage

CJCR focuses on cancer research across the full range of oncological science. Its author instructions describe a scope that includes cancer aetiology and epidemiology; cellular and molecular biology; biochemistry; immunology; molecular genetics; gene diagnosis and gene therapy; the pathology of malignant tumours; research on anticancer drugs; imaging diagnosis of cancer; surgical oncology; medical oncology; radiation oncology; and the biological therapy of cancer. In practice the journal publishes original research, reviews and related article types spanning basic, translational and clinical oncology. Its epidemiology content is particularly prominent: the journal is a regular outlet for analyses from China's national cancer registration system, and its article "Cancer incidence and mortality in China, 2014" is representative of the national statistics papers for which it is widely cited. Such papers make CJCR a reference point for anyone needing authoritative figures on the Chinese cancer burden in English.

Indexing and impact

The journal is indexed in Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), PubMed, PubMed Central, Scopus, SciSearch, Chemical Abstracts, EMBASE, the Chinese Science Citation Database (CSCD), the China Science and Technology Papers and Citation Database (CSTPCD) and CNKI, among others. Its publisher reports a Journal Impact Factor of 6.7 for 2025, a figure that places it among the highest-impact oncology journals published in China and reflects the heavy citation of its national cancer statistics and major clinical studies. The journal publishes six issues a year on its current bimonthly schedule — earlier directory listings recording four issues a year reflect an earlier quarterly pattern — and in 2025 it published around eighty articles, a deliberately limited volume consistent with a selective editorial policy. Its articles are open access and available in full through PubMed Central, maximising the reach of its content.

Editorial model and author community

As an international journal published in English, CJCR draws its authors from across China and from international collaborators, while its editorial base remains at Peking University Cancer Hospital. Its author instructions set out detailed requirements for manuscript categories, reporting and referencing, and its published articles follow the conventions of international oncology publishing, including structured abstracts and DOI registration in the series based on its ISSN (10.21147/j.issn.1000-9604). The journal's position is that of a national flagship: sponsored by the Chinese Anti-Cancer Association, it is expected to represent Chinese oncology to the world, and its contents accordingly mix institutional research from its host hospital with national-level data papers and contributions from other major Chinese cancer centres, including Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center and the National Cancer Center.

Historical development

With a publication history reaching back to 1988–1989, CJCR belongs to the first generation of English-language medical journals established in China during the reform-era opening of Chinese science to international exchange. At that time, publishing Chinese research in English was a strategic priority: it allowed Chinese oncologists to present their large clinical series and population data to the world and to participate in international scientific conversation. Over the following decades the journal developed from a quarterly with modest international visibility into a bimonthly open-access title with an impact factor in the upper range for its field. Its growth parallels the growth of Peking University Cancer Hospital itself and of Chinese oncology research generally, which by the 2010s had become one of the largest producers of oncology publications in the world.

Place among Chinese oncology journals

China publishes several English-language oncology journals, and CJCR's identity within that group is defined by its sponsor and host. It is distinct from Cancer Communications, published with Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center in Guangzhou, which began life as the Chinese Journal of Cancer (a different journal, ISSN 1000-467X, established in 1982); from the Chinese Journal of Lung Cancer and Thoracic Cancer, which are disease-specific titles from Tianjin; and from the many Chinese-language Zhonghua and society oncology journals published for the domestic profession. CJCR's combination of Chinese Anti-Cancer Association sponsorship, Peking University Cancer Hospital ownership and general-oncology scope makes it the closest Chinese equivalent of a national cancer society's general research journal.

Readership and use

The journal is read by oncologists, cancer researchers, epidemiologists and public-health specialists internationally, and it is frequently used as a source for Chinese cancer statistics, Chinese treatment-outcome series and Chinese perspectives on cancer control. Its open-access availability through PubMed Central means its national data papers are accessible to policy researchers and systematic reviewers worldwide without subscription barriers. For Chinese authors, publication in CJCR offers an indexed, high-impact English-language venue under national society sponsorship; for international readers, it offers peer-reviewed access to data from the country with the world's largest number of cancer patients.

How to cite and identify the journal

The reliable identifiers of the Chinese Journal of Cancer Research are its exact title, print ISSN 1000-9604, online ISSN 1993-0631, CN 11-2591/R, its Beijing address at Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute, No. 52 Fucheng Road, Haidian District, and its supervision by the China Association for Science and Technology with sponsorship by the Chinese Anti-Cancer Association. It must not be confused with the former Chinese Journal of Cancer (ISSN 1000-467X), now Cancer Communications, whose similar name and overlapping history cause frequent bibliographic confusion. Cited by title and ISSN, CJCR uniquely identifies the journal described in this profile.

One further measure of the journal's standing is the company it keeps in international indexing. Its simultaneous presence in SCIE, Scopus, PubMed Central, EMBASE and Chemical Abstracts, alongside the leading Chinese databases CSCD, CSTPCD and CNKI, means a paper published in CJCR is discoverable by virtually every route a cancer researcher is likely to use, in China or abroad. Few journals published in China hold that full set of listings, and the journal's maintenance of them over decades — Scopus records reach back to 1988 — is part of why its national statistics papers accumulate citations so reliably: they are the versions of Chinese cancer data that the world's databases surface first.