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Revista Médica de Chile was founded in 1872 by Sociedad Médica de Santiago (currently Chilean Society of Internal Medicine) and it is one out of twenty five medical journals founded during the XIX Century that still remain active. In monthly issues it presents clinical and biomedical research articles, as well as research and position papers dealing with medical education, public health or medical ethics. Special attention receive the impact on health care given by the emergence of new private medical schools in Chile, the relevance of methodologies to assess clinical competences in graduates, the certification of specialty programs and specialists, the appropiate use of simulators in clinical training, telemedicine, organ transplants, and current issues in medical ethics, such as abortions and euthanasia. Institutional and international collaboration in medical research is clearly reflected in recent years. Articles are subjected to external peer review and ICMJE Recommendations are carefully considered throughout the review process. Most articles are published in Spanish but English abstracts are mandatory and a growing number of articles are currently published in English. An Open Access electronic version is published by SciELO. Revista Médica de Chile is indexed in the most important international data bases and it is a member of the ICMJE ruling committee. The long life and prestige of this journal can be considered a testimony of the cultural heritage and progress in Chilean medicine.

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Revista Médica de Chile was founded in 1872 by Sociedad Médica de Santiago (currently Chilean Society of Internal Medicine) and it is one out of twenty five medical journals founded during the XIX Century that still remain active. In monthly issues it presents clinical and biomedical research articles, as well as research and position papers dealing with medical education, public health or medical ethics. Special attention receive the impact on health care given by the emergence of new private medical schools in Chile, the relevance of methodologies to assess clinical competences in graduates, the certification of specialty programs and specialists, the appropiate use of simulators in clinical training, telemedicine, organ transplants, and current issues in medical ethics, such as abortions and euthanasia. Institutional and international collaboration in medical research is clearly reflected in recent years. Articles are subjected to external peer review and ICMJE Recommendations are carefully considered throughout the review process. Most articles are published in Spanish but English abstracts are mandatory and a growing number of articles are currently published in English. An Open Access electronic version is published by SciELO. Revista Médica de Chile is indexed in the most important international data bases and it is a member of the ICMJE ruling committee. The long life and prestige of this journal can be considered a testimony of the cultural heritage and progress in Chilean medicine.

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Alejandro Goic, M.D., son of Croatian immigrants, graduated as M.D. in 1955, studying at the Catholic University of Chile Medical School. After a residency in internal medicine, he followed post graduate studies in psychosomatic medicine at the University of Oklahoma and in gastroenterology at Harvard University. Upon his return to Chile he had a brilliant career as clinician and medical educator, becoming a leader and advisor in medical education, clinical ethics and public health. Elected Dean of the University of Chile School of Medicine (1986-1994), he promoted important changes in undergraduate studies as well as in Magister and PhD programs in Biomedical Sciences. During the difficult years of the military government intervention in Chilean universities, he was one of the leaders of critical opposition. In parallel he was chief editor of Revista Médica de Chile (1976-1996), improving the editorial process according to the recommendations of ICMJE and WAME. In 1989 he was elected member of the Chilean Academy of Medicine and became its President (2000-2010). He was awarded honors and membership in prominent national and foreign institutions. In 2006 he received the National Prize in Medicine, the highest medical distinction in Chile. His wise thinking and enthusiasm gave origin to several books that have become classics in Medicine and Medical Education, permeating our institutions.

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Alejandro Goic, M.D., son of Croatian immigrants, graduated as M.D. in 1955, studying at the Catholic University of Chile Medical School. After a residency in internal medicine, he followed post graduate studies in psychosomatic medicine at the University of Oklahoma and in gastroenterology at Harvard University. Upon his return to Chile he had a brilliant career as clinician and medical educator, becoming a leader and advisor in medical education, clinical ethics and public health. Elected Dean of the University of Chile School of Medicine (1986-1994), he promoted important changes in undergraduate studies as well as in Magister and PhD programs in Biomedical Sciences. During the difficult years of the military government intervention in Chilean universities, he was one of the leaders of critical opposition. In parallel he was chief editor of Revista Médica de Chile (1976-1996), improving the editorial process according to the recommendations of ICMJE and WAME. In 1989 he was elected member of the Chilean Academy of Medicine and became its President (2000-2010). He was awarded honors and membership in prominent national and foreign institutions. In 2006 he received the National Prize in Medicine, the highest medical distinction in Chile. His wise thinking and enthusiasm gave origin to several books that have become classics in Medicine and Medical Education, permeating our institutions.

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Medical journals are often at risk of difussinng research articles, reviews, position articles, editorials or letters ubose message has been influenced by a conflict of interest. The readers may then be induced to accept conclusions and recommendations based on bisaaed protocols or an unwarranted interpretation of the results. Financial support or professional links witb pharmaceutical companies or other supporting agencies are the most common sources of conflict of interests, often difficult to detect. Similarly, reviews of manuscripts can be biassed by personal relationsbips (good or bad) between reviewers and autbors, by academic competition or intellectual passion, becoming otber sources of conflict of interest. Even uben a potential conflict of interest exists, it may not necessarily bave influenced the manuscript or its review but in order to defend the transparency of the editorial process, from submission to publication, authors, reviewers and editors sbould declare any conflict of interest they may have and allou others to decide whether the action has been biassed or not. In the present issue of Revista Médica de Chile, and updated text of the Instructions to Authors establishes that all autbors should sign a statement of habing or not a conflict of interest, clarifying which aspects of the work might have been affected by it

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Gustavo V Pineda, MD, was born in Santiago, in December 7th 1935 and died in August 17th, 2001. After studying medicine at the University of Chile School of Medicine (MD title in 1960) he was Resident in Internal Medicine at the Hospital del Salvador, in Santiago, where he later on spent his professional career, specializing in Endocrinology. Dr. Pineda was a keen clinical investigator and a leading specialist in Latinamerica, mainly in the field of thyroid diseases. Several generations of undergraduate and postgraduate students grew up under his tutorship, both as an internist and as an endocrinologist. An active member and a leader in professional and scientific organizations, he presided successively the Chilean Society of Endocrinology, the Chilean Society of Internal Medicine (Sociedad Médica de Santiago) and the Latinamerican Society for the Study of Thyroid Diseases. In 1999 he was elected Member of the Chilean Academy of Medicine. A friendly and supportive teacher and colleague, his name will remain associated with the progress of medicine in Chile during the second half of the 20th Century.

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In the year 2000, a previous Editorial in this journal reviewed the criteria for authorship as defined by experienced authors and editors, discussed in selected references from the biomedical literature. An emphasis was given to the definition of authorship stated in the available 1997 version of the "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals". After that Editorial was published, an updated version of the "Uniform Requirements" established important changes in their criteria; eg. Participation of each author in the work should permit them to take public responsibility for "appropiate portions of the content"; and acquisition of data was added as an acceptable alternative in the first requisite for authorship. These and other changes should be difussed to prospective authors, particularly in multicentric studies usually leading to multiauthorship. This new Editorial and a translation into Spanish of the authorship criteria contained in an updated (2001) version of the "Uniform Requirements" are included in this issue of Revista Médica de Chile with the purpose of stimulating authors and readers to think in their implications

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The arrival of a new year stimulated the Editor to reflect on what has been recently accomplished in the Revista and on what is planned for its immediate future. In 2001 the electronic version at the website www.scielo.cl started to reproduce the full contents of most articles. Members of the International Advisory Committee submitted reviews and special articles by invitation. The input of manuscripts increased and most of them have been improved through the peer review process. A Symposium held in August stimulated the editors of a vast proportion of Chilean clinical and biomedical journals to interchange experiences. The 5 years tenure of the Editor in Chief was extended for a second period. For the year 2002, improvements will be made in the editorial process while the Revista commemorates 130 years of continuous publication, being among the 20 oldest medical journals in the world.

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In August, 2001, the Editors of over 40 Chilean journals in biological, medical and health issues were gathered in Santiago, Chile, by the Chilean Association of Biomedical Journal Editors, together with guest librarians from Chile and Brazil, in a 2-day symposium. The main topics discussed were: the educational role of biomedical journals in Chile; how can Chilean journals become included in international databases; requisites for authorship in scientific articles; how to attract more and better manuscripts; advantages and limitations of the peer-review system; ethical problems and conflicts of interest in the editorial process; electronic tendencies in scientific publications. This was the fifth meeting on similar topics held in Chile, starting in 1972, and the interchange of experiences and opinions among editors, librarians and other experts was fruitful and stimulating

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The arrival of a new year stimulated the Editor to reflect on what has been recently accomplished in the Revista and on what is planned for its immediate future. In 2001 the electronic version at the website www.scielo.cl started to reproduce the full contents of most articles. Members of the International Advisory Committee submitted reviews and special articles by invitation. The input of manuscripts increased and most of them have been improved through the peer review process. A Symposium held in August stimulated the editors of a vast proportion of Chilean clinical and biomedical journals to interchange experiences. The 5 years tenure of the Editor in Chief was extended for a second period. For the year 2002, improvements will be made in the editorial process while the Revista commemorates 130 years of continuous publication, being among the 20 oldest medical journals in the world

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Bibliographic citations or "references" are an important component of all scientific manuscripts. The authors are responsible for their accuracy and they should follow the format and style requested by the journal where they are submitting their paper. Revista Médica de Chile adheres to the "Uniform Requirements" established by the Vancouver Group of Medical Editors. Equally important is a correct choice of references, including those original articles strictly connected to the content of the manuscript. The number of citations usually vary according to the specific character of the study: research article, or case reports, review article, etc. Common mistakes are due to an excessive number of repetitive or irrelevant citations, or the omission of important articles sometimes not found in bibliographic indexes, or an erroneous claim of priority in reporting an observation. Finally, in developing countries the authors should include previous reports appeared in their own local journals, therefore improving their opportunities of achieving international visibility

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Medical journals published in non-English languages face a handicap: their worldwide readership and citation are reduced in comparison to journals published in English. This handicap is worse for small journals edited in developing countries, regardless of whether they publish original research articles including abstracts in English. To facilitate the international diffusion of selected Chilean scientific journals, the "Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica" enforced the program "SciELO Chile" with a web site in Internet (www.scielo.cl) including the full text of articles published in recent issues. Revista Médica de Chile is the first Chilean medical journal that appears in this web site, sponsored by the National Library of Medicine, Washington D.C. We expect that this web site will give a favorable input to authors of articles published in our journal

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The Editors of Revista Médica de Chile are taking steps aimed to improve the "visibility" of this journal and to stimulate local and foreign authors to submit better original articles, appealing to a broader and international readership. Until now, the journal's editorial policy has been to stress its educational role, focused in Chilean readers and authors. In the recent years, an increasing number of research articles is being received, including manuscripts from North America, Europe and other Latinamerican countries. This is explainable, in part, by the fact that this journal is indexed in MEDLINE, ISI (Current Contents/Clinical Medicine) and several other major databases. The Revista is also one of the oldest medical journals in the world, published since 1872. In this issue of the Revista we welcome the new members of an "International Advisory Committee", with prominent physicians, scientists and teachers from the U.S.A. and Europe. They accepted to advise the Editors in their task, to submit review articles, state-of-the-art or position papers on topics of their own interest, and to help in the assessment of some manuscripts. We thank them warmly for their enthusiastic response to our invitation

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On September 29th, 2000, The Chilean Association of Biomedical Journal Editors was founded, sponsored by the "Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (CONICYT)" (the Governmental Agency promoting and funding scientific research and technological development in Chile) and the "Sociedad Médica de Santiago" (Chilean Society of Internal Medicine). The Association adopted the goals of the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) and therefore it will foster "cooperation and communication among Editors of Chilean biomedical journals; to improve editorial standards, to promote professionalism in medical editing through education, self-criticism and self-regulation; and to encourage research on the principles and practice of medical editing". Twenty nine journals covering a closely similar number of different biomedical sciences, medical specialties, veterinary, dentistry and nursing, became Founding Members of the Association. A Governing Board was elected: President: Humberto Reyes, M.D. (Editor, Revista Médica de Chile); Vice-President: Mariano del Sol, M.D. (Editor, Revista Chilena de Anatomía); Secretary: Anna María Prat (CONICYT); Councilors: Manuel Krauskopff, Ph.D. (Editor, Biological Research) and Maritza Rahal, M.D. (Editor, Revista de Otorrinolaringología y Cirugía de Cabeza y Cuello). The Association will organize a Symposium on Biomedical Journal Editing and will spread information stimulating Chilean biomedical journals to become indexed in international databases and in SciELO-Chile, the main Chilean scientific website (www.scielo.cl)

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A 66 year-old obese woman with arthrosis, self-medicated with oral nimesulide, 200 mg daily. After 6 weeks she developed nausea, jaundice and dark urine. Two weeks later she had recurrent hematemesis and was hospitalized. Besides obesity and anemia her physical examination was unremarkable. An upper GI endoscopy revealed 3 acute gastric ulcers and a 4th one in the pyloric channel. Abdominal ultrasonogram showed a slightly enlarged liver with diffuse reduction in ecogenicity; the gallbladder and biliary tract were normal. Blood tests demonstrated a conjugated hyperbilirubinemia (maximal total value: 18,4 mg/dl), ALAT 960 U/l, ASAT 850 U/l, GGT 420 U/l, alkaline phosphatases mildly elevated, pro-time 49 percent and albumin 2.7 mg/dl. Serum markers for hepatitis A, B and C viruses were negative. ANA, AMA, anti-SmA, were negative. Ceruloplasmin was normal. A liver biopsy showed bridging necrosis and other signs of acute toxic liver damage. Gastric ulcers healed after conventional treatment and hepatitis subsided after 2 months leaving no signs of chronic liver damage. The diagnosis of toxic hepatitis due to nimesulide was supported by the time-course of drug usage, sex, age, absence of other causes of liver disease, a compatible liver biopsy and the improvement after drug withdrawal. Peptic ulcers or toxic hepatitis have been previously described as independent adverse reactions in patients taking nimesulide or other NSAIDs but their simultaneous occurrence in a single patient is a unique event that deserves to be reported

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