Overview
The Heart Surgery Forum (HSF) is an open access peer-reviewed scientific journal for cardiac surgery professionals. The Heart Surgery Forum is seeking original investigative and clinical work on any subject germane to cardiac surgical science or practice. The journal regularly receives articles from the field of cardiac surgery, including cardiovascular surgery, thoracic surgery and its related imaging, anesthesiology, radiology, pharmacology, and nursing, as well as surgical and interventional treatments related to cardiology.
Today, the HSF continues as one of the leading cardiothoracic resources in more than 182 countries. Published first online and then in print, the HSF publishes articles, reviews, case reports, surgical techniques, editorials, and letters to the editor on the latest advances and studies in cardiac care.
ISSN Numbers
Print ISSN: 1098-3511
Electronic ISSN: 1522-6662
Impact Factor
Publication Frequency: Monthly
Current Impact Factor: 0.6 (2024)
Scopus CiteScore: 1.1
JCR Category Rank: Q4 in CARDIAC & CARDIOVASCULAR SYSTEMS; Q4 in SURGERY
Journal History
1997 The Heart Surgery Forum (HSF) was inaugurated by Mark M. Levinson, MD, as a multimedia scientific publication, which communicated over the new “Information Highway” known as the Web. The HSF began as a “labor of love” for heart surgeons as a dynamic tool for the betterment of themselves and their patients. Included in the original HSF website was a novel means to present interesting cases using color photos, movies, text and graphics, which was groundbreaking at that time.
1998 The Heart Surgery Forum released the inaugural issue.
2000 The Heart Surgery Forum has been indexed by Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), and received its first Impact Factor 1.058.
2001 The Heart Surgery Forum has been indexed by Scopus.
2002 The Heart Surgery Forum was indexed by PubMed (MEDLINE).
2017 The Heart Surgery Forum was changed to Open Access journal (from Volume 20 Issue 1).
2024 The Heart Surgery Forum uses the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). Starting with Volume 27, Issue 9, authors will retain the copyright to their published articles. Now freely available to readers worldwide for the first time, HSF provides the most up-to-date research and clinical information to the global community of heart specialists.
2025 The Heart Surgery Forum (from Volume 28 Issue 9) , published by IMR Press, has changed its open access publication model from the CC BY-NC-ND license to the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license.
Benefits of Open Access Publishing
All articles published by The Heart Surgery Forum (HSF) are made immediately available worldwide under an open access license. This means:
Everyone has free and unlimited access to the full-text of all articles published in The Heart Surgery Forum (HSF).
Free for readers, with a comparatively low Article Processing Charges (APC) paid by authors or their funding bodies or institutions.
Authors Rights and Permissions
Papers published in Volumes 1–28 (from 1998 to 2025) are copyright IMR Press.
Copyright
2025 The Heart Surgery Forum (from Volume 28 Issue 9), published by IMR Press, has changed its open access publication model from the CC BY-NC-ND license to the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. All papers published from Volume 1 to Volume 28, No. 8 (1998–2025) are copyrighted by IMR Press, and available under a CC BY-NC-ND license. Articles published beginning from Volume 28 Issue 9 (2025) are under the terms and conditions of the CC BY license.
IMR Press will insert the following note on the first page of the published text:
© Year The Author(s). Published by IMR Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY 4.0 license.
Permissions
IMR Press grants any third party the right to use the article freely, so long as its integrity is maintained and its original authors, citation details and publisher are identified.
Permission is not required to use original figures or tables for non-commercial and educational use (e.g., in a review article, or in a book that is not for sale) if the article is copyright IMR Press and are available for use under the CC BY-NC-ND license. Please include the full journal reference and, for articles published in Volumes 1– Volume 28, No. 8 (1998–2025) , include "Copyright (copyright year) IMR Press" as a copyright note.
Articles published beginning from Volume 28 Issue 9 (2025) are under the terms and conditions of the CC BY license. HSF is not authorized to grant permission for material published under either license, as the authors retain copyright. However, depending on the intended use, permission may not be required at all. For details, see: Copyright & License.