About Chinese Journal of General Surgery

Chinese Journal of General Surgery

Overview and identity

The Chinese Journal of General Surgery (Zhongguo Putong Waike Zazhi) is a Chinese-language surgical journal published by Central South University in Changsha, Hunan, China. Its journal website presents the title in English as "China Journal of General Surgery", and its bilingual platform serves the journal's Chinese and English article pages. It is identified by print ISSN 1005-6947 and online ISSN 2096-9252. The journal was at volume 35 in 2026, indicating publication since 1992. It covers general surgery in the broad Chinese sense of the specialty — gastrointestinal, hepatobiliary, pancreatic, vascular, breast, thyroid and hernia surgery — publishing research from Xiangya and other Chinese surgical centres. Unlike most national surgical journals in this directory, which are published in Beijing by the Chinese Medical Association, this title is a university journal, published by Central South University and rooted in the surgical tradition of its Xiangya School of Medicine in Changsha.

Home at Central South University and Xiangya

The journal's institutional home gives it its character. Central South University in Changsha is one of China's major comprehensive universities, and its Xiangya School of Medicine — descended from the Yale-China medical school founded in 1914 — is one of the most famous medical schools in China, whose name carries historic prestige in Chinese medicine ("South Xiangya" pairs with "North Xiehe", Peking Union, in the traditional geography of Chinese medical excellence). The university's affiliated Xiangya hospitals are among the largest surgical centres in central China. A general surgery journal published from this base draws its editors and much of its authorship from the Xiangya system while serving a national readership, and it provides central China with a surgical publishing institution of its own outside the Beijing-centred association system.

Scope of general surgery in China

"General surgery" (putong waike, literally "ordinary surgery") in the Chinese hospital system is broader than the shrinking general surgery of some Western systems: it is the parent specialty from which subspecialties branch, and in most Chinese hospitals it encompasses gastrointestinal surgery, hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgery, vascular surgery, breast and thyroid surgery, hernia and abdominal wall surgery and surgical critical care. The journal's scope follows that definition. Its stated coverage includes general, vascular, hepatobiliary and gastrointestinal surgery research, and its issues mix subspecialty content accordingly: gastric and colorectal cancer surgery, liver and pancreatic resections, vascular reconstruction and endovascular work, breast and endocrine surgery, and studies of perioperative care, surgical infection and nutrition. It publishes original research, reviews, case reports and technique papers in Chinese, with English abstracts and an English-language web presentation that makes its tables of contents accessible internationally.

Publication history

Volume 35 in 2026 indicates a founding in 1992, making the journal a product of the period in which China's leading medical universities developed their own journal portfolios alongside the association journals. Through the 1990s and 2000s its content tracked the transformation of Chinese surgery: the spread of laparoscopic techniques, the growth of gastric and colorectal cancer surgery as those diseases became dominant surgical problems, the development of vascular and transplant surgery in provincial centres, and the increasing statistical and methodological sophistication of Chinese surgical research. Its later acquisition of an online ISSN (2096-9252) alongside its long-standing print ISSN records its transition to combined print and digital publication, and its current web platform presents the journal bilingually under the English display title "China Journal of General Surgery".

Editorial and academic standing

The journal is a recognised Chinese core journal in its field, included in the Chinese scientific journal evaluation systems used by universities and hospitals to assess publications, and its articles are indexed in the Chinese biomedical databases. For Chinese surgical academics — whose promotion depends substantially on publication in recognised domestic journals as well as international ones — a university-published core journal of this standing is an important venue, particularly for clinical research, surgical series and technique reports written for Chinese practice conditions. The journal's editorial standards follow the conventions of Chinese academic publishing, with peer review, structured abstracts in Chinese and English, and adherence to the reporting norms of the Chinese journal system.

Readership and authorship

The journal's authors are general and subspecialty surgeons from Xiangya and from hospitals and medical universities across China; its readers are the national community of general surgeons, for whom a Changsha-published journal offers a perspective anchored in a great regional medical centre rather than in the capital. Central South University's own description of the journal notes its coverage of research from Xiangya and other Chinese centres, which is exactly the mix the journal presents. Its English-language web interface and abstracts give its contents a degree of international discoverability, although its citing community is overwhelmingly domestic.

Distinguishing the journal from its namesakes

Several journals have similar names, and precision matters. This Chinese Journal of General Surgery (ISSN 1005-6947) is the Central South University journal from Changsha. It is different from the Chinese Journal of General Surgery published within the Chinese Medical Association system in earlier periods, from the English-language journal Gland Surgery and other AME titles, from the Archives of Surgery tradition in the West, and from the journal's own English display variant "China Journal of General Surgery", which is the same journal, not a separate one. The safest identifiers are the ISSNs, the Changsha base and the Central South University publisher credit. Researchers encountering citations abbreviated as Zhongguo Putong Waike Zazhi should map them to this title and ISSN.

The journal and Chinese surgical development

Read across its run since 1992, the journal documents the maturation of surgery in central China and nationally: the diffusion of advanced techniques from the coastal and capital centres to the large provincial universities, the growth of surgical oncology, and the rise of evidence-based surgical research in China. University journals like this one are part of the infrastructure of that development, giving regional centres editorial experience, a literature of their own and a channel to the national profession. The journal's continuation into its thirty-fifth volume in 2026, with undiminished scope across the breadth of general surgery, reflects the continuing breadth of the parent specialty in Chinese hospitals.

How to cite and identify the journal

The reliable identifiers of the Chinese Journal of General Surgery are its exact title, print ISSN 1005-6947, online ISSN 2096-9252, its publisher Central South University, its base in Changsha, Hunan, its English display title "China Journal of General Surgery" on its official site, and its volume sequence reaching volume 35 in 2026 (publication since 1992). Cited by title and ISSN, it uniquely identifies the journal described in this profile.

The journal's university base has practical consequences for its content. Because Central South University's Xiangya hospitals serve as referral centres for a large population in Hunan and neighbouring provinces, the surgical problems its journal handles are those of real central-China practice: high volumes of gastric and colorectal cancer, hepatobiliary disease, vascular disease in an ageing population and the complications of advanced presentation. Its bilingual web platform, presenting the journal in English as the China Journal of General Surgery while publishing in Chinese, reflects a deliberate effort to keep that regionally rooted content visible to outside readers. The journal thereby performs for central China what the Beijing association journals perform nationally — and its thirty-five volumes are a substantial part of the published record of Chinese general surgery outside the capital.