Abstract

Objectives

The Journal of Urology (JU) and Urology have different policies regarding the publication of articles devoted to urologic history. JU stopped publishing full length historical articles in 2009. We wished to assess the pattern and frequency of historical article publishing in the two of the largest urologic journals.

Methods

We used a PubMed and manually based search of all articles from JU and Urology and categorized each article by subject, especially whether they were wholly and/or subtantially devoted to a historical subject.

Results

From 1973-2000, JU and Urology published 73 and 91 articles on the history of urology respectively. From 1997- 2008, JU experienced an increase in historical articles at a time when the History Forum was begun at the AUA Annual Meeting. Therafter, JU stopped publishing historical articles but Urology has published 35 from 2009-2017 at an average rate of 3.9 articles/year.

Conclusions

The journal Urology, but not JU, publishes a history of urology article about every 3 months. The study revealed the need for a journal wholly dedicated to the history of urology.