Rapid progress in medical research is accompanied by the need to have new options for reporting of experimental results. This is applicable to different areas of medicine, where nuclear medicine is no exception. The restrictions to limit the number of necessary publications originate in the high cost of publication of conventional journals while there is also the imperative to keep quality of contents as high as possible. On one hand, the former have been increasing steadily. On the other hand the latter is necessary and means that high quality of publications is imperative for a journal in order to capture an increasing number of researchers interested in publishing in the more prestigious journals, that are defined as a function of their impact factor.

As Nuclear Medicine in Latin America expands, the need for a regional publication increases. In 1969 the Revista de Biología y Medicina Nuclear, was published for the first time as the official Journal of Alasbimn. In 1989, its publication was discontinued, and its material published by Revista Española de Medicina Nuclear till 1997. Last year Chile took over to resume the edition again following a decision of the assembly of ALASBIMN in Lima, Peru.

The cost of conventional publishing is very high, so the Chilean Society carried out a study of costs of electronic publishing and they turned out to be approximately one third to half of conventional hard copy system. Therefore, we are pleased to announce in next months the reedition of the Journal of Alasbimn, in electronic format. We expect to have more diffusion and the possibility to reach a large number of colleagues. The goal is to maintain regular editions and keep the quality of articles as high as possible.

Publishing in The Journal of Alasbimn will be cost-free. On the other hand the delay to publish, will hopefully be significantly reduced by the electronic modality, considering that those articles accepted without modifications, will be printed in 90-180 days at the most. Those requiring additional review, will be ready for printing in 180-270 days. The difficulties in communication between the Editorial Committee and authors will be overcome by the use of e-mail and having the journal in the server, will avoid distribution problems and immediate access.

The Journal of Alasbimn will be a free and secure medium for rapid dissemination of academic information. The articles will remain electronically permanently accessible and protected of possible alterations.

The Journal of ALASBIMN will be initially a quarterly publication. It will have an Editorial Committee comprised by the best scientists in the different areas of Nuclear Medicine.

The Editor.