Imagination turns real, or vice versa?

¹ CHUV, Lausanne, Switzerland

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: editor{at}ejcts.ch.

	Abstract

Scientific publishing has made great strides in recent years, and this not only in diffusion of the final article compositions over the web and in print, but also in manuscript preparation, uploading of text and figures, correction of proofs and on-line discussion. What has been less apparent is the steady improvement not only of the fonts and lay-out, but much more so of the illustrations. In the first issue of the European Journal of Cardio-thoracic Surgery which appeared in 1987 and had 37 articles, there were 94 figures with an average of 2.6 per article out of which 46 were line graphs, bar graphs, or drawings (49%), and 47 photographic reproductions (51%). In contrast, the last issue of the European Journal of Cardio-thoracic Surgery published in 2007 had 38 communications including 9 letters to the editor. There were 76 figures with an average of 2.7 per article out of which 38 were line graphs, bar graphs, or drawings (50%), and 38 were photographic reproductions or scans (50%). Interestingly, there were 8 three-dimensional reconstructions/images one of which included a video. Likewise, the last issue of Interactive Thoracic and CardioVascular Surgery in 2007 carried 43 articles, including 8 e-comments, the on-line equivalent of letters to the editor. There were 41 figures and two videos with an average of 1.2 figures per article out of which 8 were line graphs, bar graphs, or drawings (20%), and 33 were photographic reproductions or scans (80%). Together with three 3-dimensional reconstructions/images and two videos, there is an obvious trend away from line drawings towards more sophisticated types of illustrations for ICVTS as well as the more recent issues of the EJCTS .