The International Journal of Hyperthermia and Thermal Therapies (IJH) was initiated in 1984, sponsored by its three founding societies, The Society for Thermal Medicine, The European Society for Hyperthermic Oncology, and the Japanese Society for Thermal Medicine. The initiation of the journal accompanied a large increase in uses of hyperthermia to treat cancer. Over its 34-year history, the Journal has been a main focal point for reporting the biology, physics/engineering, and clinical implementations of thermal therapies for cancer and a variety of other diseases. The impact of the Journal internationally has grown, as is evidenced by a steadily rising impact factor, which reached the highest ranking in the history of the journal in 2017, of 3.44.
The rise in interest in the journal has paralleled a major change in focus. The journal content is now oriented toward disciplines such as thermal ablation, hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC), high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) and cryotherapy. Special issues have highlighted cutting-edge research on these therapies, as well as subjects such as tumor immunology, physiologic effects of thermal therapies, use of thermal therapies for infection, and others. These special issues have attracted new authors to the journal, which has contributed to its unprecedented growth. The number of papers submitted to the journal has increased more than four-fold in the last 10 years.
We are now at a crossroads, where we have the opportunity for the journal to have even wider impact. To do this, we have converted from a hard copy subscription-based journal to Open Access. This occurred on June 1, 2018.
In the OA format, authors pay for the publication of papers rather than having the publication costs borne by library and individual subscriptions. The advantages of this format are multiple: (1) once accepted, papers will be immediately and freely available to anyone in the world online, (2) published papers will undergo the same high level of peer review that has been used in the past, and (3) content will still be listed by ISI and other search engines. Therefore, the papers will be very easy to find and access, without charging to the reader, (4) the publisher has launched a publicity campaign to advertise this transition as a mechanism to spread the word.
OA is proven to increase visibility of Journal content for many other journals that have undergone this transition. There is no doubt that this transition will yield positive results for IJH and for our authors. We are very fortunate to have enthusiastic support of Taylor and Francis as we take this new step, which will undoubtedly improve the quality and visibility of the field, worldwide.