About Chinese Journal of Cerebrovascular Diseases

Chinese Journal of Cerebrovascular Diseases

Overview and identity

The Chinese Journal of Cerebrovascular Diseases is a Chinese-language medical journal devoted to diseases of the blood vessels of the brain, based in Beijing, China. It is identified by ISSN 1672-5921, and its articles carry DOIs in the form 10.3969/j.issn.1672-5921 followed by year, issue and article number. International bibliographic services record the journal as active from 2006 onward, and its archive reached volume 21 in 2024. The journal is associated with the neurosurgical and stroke community of Capital Medical University in Beijing, the university whose hospitals include major national centres for neurological and cerebrovascular care.

Two warnings belong at the head of this profile, because this journal's name invites confusion. It is not Cerebrovascular Diseases, the international English-language journal published by Karger, and it is not the Chinese Journal of Stroke, a different Chinese title. Everything in this profile concerns only the Beijing journal with ISSN 1672-5921. Readers citing cerebrovascular research from China should check the ISSN before attributing an article to any of these titles, since their publishers, languages and editorial communities are entirely separate.

Field and clinical context

Cerebrovascular disease — above all stroke — is one of the largest single causes of death and long-term disability in China, and Chinese sources note that China has the highest prevalence of stroke worldwide, with prevalence increasing annually. Care for these conditions is delivered by an unusually broad team: neurologists manage acute ischaemic stroke, thrombolysis and secondary prevention; neurosurgeons and interventional specialists treat aneurysms, vascular malformations and selected occlusions; and rehabilitation, nursing and public health staff deal with the long aftermath. A journal that takes cerebrovascular diseases as its whole subject therefore serves several professions at once, and its contents move between neurology, neurosurgery, intervention, imaging and organised stroke care.

That breadth explains the journal's existence as a separate title. General neurology and general neurosurgery journals in China carry stroke papers among many others, but a dedicated cerebrovascular journal can publish the specialty's national reports, centre data and technique-focused research in one place, for readers who work on these diseases every day.

History and bibliographic record

The journal's indexed record begins in 2006 in international services, which list its active years as 2006-2025, its country as China and its subject area as medicine. Its volume numbering reached volume 19 in 2022 and volume 21 in 2024, a sequence consistent with annual volumes throughout that period. Bibliographic listings have associated its publication with the Society of China University Journals in Natural Sciences, while its editorial and author community is rooted in Beijing's university hospital system, in particular the neurosurgical and stroke community around Capital Medical University.

Capital Medical University's relevance is concrete rather than ceremonial. Its affiliated hospitals in Beijing include Xuanwu Hospital and Beijing Tiantan Hospital, institutions that house nationally prominent neurology, neurosurgery and stroke services and the China National Clinical Research Center for Neurological Diseases. Researchers from those services lead the Chinese stroke literature — Xunming Ji of Capital Medical University, for example, is identified in bibliometric analyses as a leading scholar in cerebral venous thrombosis research, corresponding from the Beijing Institute for Brain Disorders and the Department of Neurosurgery at Xuanwu Hospital. A Beijing cerebrovascular journal associated with this community sits at the centre of the specialty's Chinese research network.

Scope: stroke, aneurysm and neurovascular surgery

The journal publishes research on stroke, cerebral aneurysm and neurovascular surgery, together with the wider cerebrovascular field named in its title. In practice that covers acute ischaemic stroke and its reperfusion treatments, intracerebral and subarachnoid haemorrhage, aneurysm diagnosis and surgical or endovascular treatment, cerebrovascular imaging, cerebral venous disease, secondary prevention, and the organisation of stroke services. Its DOI record and citation footprint show Chinese clinical studies citing it for stroke-centre data, stroke guideline interpretation and cerebrovascular epidemiology, which reflects how working clinicians use it: as a source of Chinese patient data and Chinese service experience rather than imported generalities.

The journal also participates in the wider Chinese guideline ecosystem indirectly through its community. Chinese guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of acute ischaemic stroke, and Chinese guidelines for endovascular management of ischaemic cerebrovascular diseases, are led by specialists from Beijing's Capital Medical University hospitals and the Chinese Stroke Society. The journal profiled here is the specialty periodical of that same community, publishing its research and its national service reports even where formal guidelines themselves appear in neurology society titles.

The China stroke reports

The journal's most distinctive publishing role is as the home of China's national stroke reporting. It published the summary of the Chinese Stroke Prevention and Treatment Report 2020 in 2022, in volume 19, issue 2, pages 136-144 (DOI 10.3969/j.issn.1672-5921.2022.02.011), authored by the Chinese Stroke Prevention and Treatment Report writing group. Those reports compile the national picture of stroke prevalence, incidence, mortality, risk factors and prevention and treatment services, and they are cited as the authoritative summary of China's stroke burden in subsequent research.

It likewise published the brief report on stroke centres in China for 2022: Wang Longde and the China Stroke Center Report author group, Summary of China Stroke Center Report 2022, Chinese Journal of Cerebrovascular Diseases, 2024, volume 21, issue 8, pages 565-576 (DOI 10.3969/j.issn.1672-5921.2024.08.009). Stroke centres are the organised units through which China delivers thrombolysis, thrombectomy and structured stroke care, so a national report on their numbers, distribution and performance is a service-planning document as much as a research paper. Both reports are now standard citations: recent studies in international journals on subjects from post-stroke dysphagia nutrition risk to surrogate decision-making in thrombolysis cite the 2024 stroke centre report as their source for Chinese stroke service data. A journal whose pages carry the numbers everyone else quotes occupies a reference position in its field.

Indexing and metrics

Journal metric services record the Chinese Journal of Cerebrovascular Diseases with ISSN 16725921, country China, publication type journal and active years 2006-2025. Its citation presence can also be traced through the reference lists of the wider stroke literature, where its articles — particularly the national reports — are cited by authors in China and abroad writing in English-language journals. That pattern, Chinese-language primary publication with international secondary citation, is typical of China's national specialty journals and is one reason accurate directory records matter: the journal influences research well beyond its own subscriber base.

Readership and use

The journal is written for neurologists, neurosurgeons, interventional neuroradiologists, stroke-unit staff, cerebrovascular researchers and the administrators who plan stroke services in China. Different readers use it differently: clinicians for technique and outcome studies in aneurysm and stroke care, researchers for Chinese epidemiological and service data, and policymakers for the national prevention and treatment and stroke centre reports. Because stroke care in China is organised nationally, with centre accreditation and reporting systems, the journal's service-level content has an audience in hospital management as well as in clinical departments.

Distinguishing this journal from similar titles

Because the instruction to distinguish this title is so important, it is worth setting out the contrasts plainly. Karger's Cerebrovascular Diseases is an international, interdisciplinary English-language journal, published in Europe, with a global editorial structure and a sister open-access title, Cerebrovascular Diseases Extra; it has no connection with the Beijing journal beyond a shared disease area. The Journal of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Diseases is a separate, United States-associated English-language title frequently cited in stroke bibliometrics. The Chinese Journal of Stroke is another Chinese-language title in the same field. The journal in this profile is defined by three facts and only those facts: Beijing base, Chinese language, ISSN 1672-5921, with volume 21 reached in 2024 and national stroke reports in its pages.

Why the journal matters

The Chinese Journal of Cerebrovascular Diseases matters because it unites, in one verified record, the clinical specialty of cerebrovascular medicine in China's capital with the country's national stroke reporting. Since its indexed debut in 2006 it has published stroke, aneurysm and neurovascular surgery research for the Capital Medical University-centred community, and it carries the Chinese Stroke Prevention and Treatment Report summary and the China Stroke Center Report that researchers worldwide cite for Chinese data. Recorded accurately — with its ISSN, its Beijing base, its volume history and its report-publishing role, and kept distinct from the Karger title and the Chinese Journal of Stroke — it takes its proper place in any serious directory of Chinese medical journals.