About MKG

MKG

MKG is the specialist journal for oral and maxillofacial surgery in the German-speaking world. Published as Die MKG-Chirurgie — the organ of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Mund-, Kiefer- und Gesichtschirurgie (DGMKG) — by Springer Medizin, the journal serves the surgeons who operate on the mouth, jaws, face, and skull: a discipline that combines dentistry and medicine in a single specialty. The journal's lineage runs through Der MKG-Chirurg (Springer, from 2008) and the earlier Mund-, Kiefer- und Gesichtschirurgie (1997–2007), and since 2022 it appears as Die MKG-Chirurgie in print (ISSN 2731-748X) and online (ISSN 2731-7498). For a specialty that treats everything from facial trauma to tumor surgery, from cleft lip and palate to orthognathic surgery, the journal is the German-language forum where the discipline's science, technique, and professional politics are discussed.

Overview

The journal presents itself as the organ of the DGMKG — the German Society for Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery — addressing the specialty's physicians in hospitals, university clinics, and private practice. The MKG surgeon (Mund-, Kiefer- und Gesichtschirurg) holds the rare double qualification of physician and dentist; on January 1, 2001, 1,310 MKG surgeons were registered in Germany, of whom 778 were in private practice, and by the end of 2009 the number had grown to 1,474. The journal's readership mirrors this community: clinic directors and senior physicians at university hospitals, surgeons in private practice, residents in the specialty's training program, and the interdisciplinary partners — anesthetists, ENT surgeons, ophthalmologists, orthodontists, and speech therapists.

The editorial program covers the specialty's clinical spectrum: traumatology of the facial skeleton, tumor surgery of the oral cavity and face, reconstructive surgery, cleft lip and palate treatment, orthognathic surgery, implantology, and the management of infections and diseases of the salivary glands, nerves, skin, and soft tissues of the face. Case reports, original articles, and review contributions present the state of the art; the journal's function as the society's organ gives it the professional-political dimension — congress reports, society announcements, and the debates on training regulations and the specialty's future.

The journal is published bilingually in practice: articles appear in German with summaries in English, reflecting the specialty's international scientific communication. The online edition, indexed in the library catalogs under ISSN 2731-7498, is available through institutional licenses including the German DEAL agreements.

History

The journal's history mirrors the development of the specialty and its publishing houses. The earlier title Mund-, Kiefer- und Gesichtschirurgie (ISSN 1432-9417, online 1434-3940) appeared from 1997 to 2007, published in the Holtzbrinck Springer Nature group from Berlin; it was continued by the English-language Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery (ISSN 1865-1550). From 2008, Springer published Der MKG-Chirurg as the journal of the German-language specialty community.

In 2022, the journal was relaunched as Die MKG-Chirurgie — Organ der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Mund-, Kiefer- und Gesichtschirurgie — published by Springer Medizin in Heidelberg/Berlin. The KIT library catalog records the publication run from volume 15, issue 3 (2022), as the continuation of Der MKG-Chirurg, in print (Berlin: Springer Medizin, ISSN 2731-748X) and online (ISSN 2731-7498). The relaunch consolidated the journal's identity as the DGMKG's organ: the society's official publication, carrying its congress reports, guidelines, and professional communications.

The DGMKG itself, the specialty's scientific society, holds its annual congress — the 76th congress and practice-management seminar took place June 10–13, 2026, in Ulm — where the journal's authors and readers meet. The society's press conferences, such as the 2026 online press conference on MKG surgery in war and disaster injuries, show the specialty's public dimension: as the DGMKG's experts noted, the MKG specialty is "a child of war," born in the world wars of the twentieth century, and in the present era of conflict it has gained new urgency.

Coverage and Content

The journal's coverage follows the specialty's clinical spectrum. Traumatology covers fractures of the facial skeleton — zygomatic fractures, orbital injuries, mandibular fractures — and their surgical management, including the interdisciplinary cooperation with neurosurgery, ophthalmology, and ENT that complex facial trauma demands. Tumor surgery addresses malignancies of the oral cavity, jaws, and face: resection, neck dissection, and the reconstructive techniques — free flaps, bone grafts, CAD/CAM-planned reconstructions — that restore form and function.

Cleft lip and palate treatment, one of the specialty's classical domains, appears with the interdisciplinary concept: the German treatment model closes the cleft-related facial structures by the end of the second year of life (except the jaw cleft), in cooperation with gynecologists, pediatricians, ENT surgeons, orthodontists, and speech therapists. Orthognathic surgery, implantology, and the treatment of craniofacial malformations form further standing beats; the journal also covers salivary-gland diseases, nerve surgery, and the adjuvant therapies of MKG oncology.

Beyond the clinical, the journal carries the society's professional life: congress programs and reports, the DGMKG's statements on health policy, training regulations (Weiterbildungsordnung) and the surgical logbook (Op-Katalog) that structures the specialty's residency, and the debates on the specialty's organization and future. The English-language summaries make the German-language content accessible to the international community.

Organization and Ownership

Die MKG-Chirurgie is published by Springer Medizin — the medical publishing arm of Springer Nature — in Heidelberg and Berlin, as the organ of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Mund-, Kiefer- und Gesichtschirurgie e. V. (DGMKG). The society, the specialty's scientific organization in Germany, provides the journal's institutional identity: its congresses, its specialist committees, and its professional-political positions form the journal's organizational context. The journal's editors and the DGMKG's leadership — congress presidents such as Prof. Dr. Dr. Alexander Schramm (Ulm, 2026), Prof. Dr. Dr. Jörg Wiltfang, and Dr. Dr. Henning Wieker — represent the specialty's academic leadership.

The bibliographic identity is established in the library catalogs: Die MKG-Chirurgie, Organ der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Mund-, Kiefer- und Gesichtschirurgie; print ISSN 2731-748X (Berlin: Springer Medizin, from 2022); online ISSN 2731-7498; continuation of Der MKG-Chirurg (Springer, 2008); ZDB-ID 3130965-3. The online edition is available through institutional access including the DEAL agreements.

Circulation and subscription figures for the current year are not publicly confirmed in freely available sources. The commercial model is that of a society journal in medical specialist publishing: institutional and personal subscriptions, society-member distribution through the DGMKG, and advertising from the medical-device, implant, and pharmaceutical industries that serve the specialty. The DEAL agreements that govern institutional access in Germany shape the journal's digital distribution, placing the MKG specialty's literature within the country's negotiated open-access and subscription framework.

Digital Presence

The journal's digital presence is anchored in Springer's online platforms, where Die MKG-Chirurgie appears under the online ISSN 2731-7498, with the print edition (2731-748X) published from Berlin. The online edition provides the journal's articles to institutional subscribers through the DEAL agreements and to the DGMKG's members, with the library catalogs recording access through university libraries including the KIT, HKA, and DHBW Karlsruhe.

The DGMKG's own digital communications — the society's website, congress announcements, and press conferences such as the 2026 online press event on war and disaster injuries — form the professional network in which the journal's content circulates. The specialty's interdisciplinary character, bringing together dentistry and medicine, is reflected in the journal's digital indexing across dental and medical databases. As the organ of the German maxillofacial-surgery society, the journal's digital edition carries the specialty's German-language discourse into the international scientific communication — the forum where the surgeons of the face publish, in print and online. The online ISSN 2731-7498 anchors the digital edition in the library catalogs, ensuring that the journal's articles remain findable and citable for the specialty's researchers worldwide.