Systematic revision in scientific journals of Colombian publications with the use of flow cytometry

Abstract

Objective: In this work, a systematic review of the scientific literature was carried out in order to determine the number of Colombian scientific publications involving the use of flow cytometry. Special focus was made on the use of flow cytometry applications in these publications, and the contribution of Colombian publications to world scientific knowledge.Methods: The databases used to carry out the searches were PubMed, LILACS and ISI Web of Knowledge, and the searched terms were “flow cytometry” and “Colombia” or “citometría de flujo” and “Colombia”. Experimental papers that used flow cytometry where included in which the first or last author belonged to a Colombian research group.Results: A total of 74 articles published from August, 1997, to March, 2010, were compiled. Most of the papers were from the biomedical field and 54% of them were related to infectious diseases. The number of publications per year increased progressively from 1997 until 2004 where a peak of 11 papers was registered. These publications were from 27 research groups that belong to 13 different institutions. Groups from Universidad de Antioquia contributed with 39.2% (n=29) of the published papers. The application of flow cytometry more referred was immunophenotype analysis with 58.1%.Conclusions: Until May, 2010, PubMed reported 76,312 publications related to flow cytometry; therefore, Colombian publications contributed 0.096% of the world publications in this topic.