OBJECTIVE: To determine the number of articles originating in Turkey and published in international spine-related journals, to compare the number of spine-related publications of different disciplines, and to compare Turkey's spine-related publications with those of other countries.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: A five-year review of PubMed from 2000 to 2004 was performed. The reviewed journals were Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine, Spinal Cord, European Spine Journal, Spine, Journal of Spinal Disorders and Techniques, and The Spine Journal.

RESULTS: 182 papers had been published by Turkish authors in main spine-related journals during the study period. Turkish authors were among the most productive authors in Spine, Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine, and Spinal Cord. With respect to the published papers in Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine, articles originating from Turkey were second, sixth, fourth, third, and fourth in number in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004 respectively.

There was a dominance of papers written by neurosurgeons in Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine, and Spinal Cord while papers written by orthopaedic surgeons dominated in Spine.

COMMENT: There are an increasing number of papers from Turkey in western spinerelated and neurosurgical journals. We expect further contributions from our country to the medical literature in the future.