[Scientific production in clinical medicine and international collaboration networks in South American countries].

Background: International collaboration is increasingly used in biomedical research.

Aim: To describe the characteristics of scientific production in Latin America and the main international collaboration networks for the period 2000 to 2009.

Material And Methods: Search for papers generated in Latin American countries in the Clinical Medicine database of ISI Web of Knowledge v.4.10 - Current Contents Connect. The country of origin of the corresponding author was considered the producing country of the paper. International collaboration was analyzed calculating the number of countries that contributed to the generation of a particular paper. Collaboration networks were graphed to determine the centrality of each network.

Results: Twelve Latin American countries participated in the production of 253,362 papers. The corresponding author was South American in 79% of these papers. Sixteen percent of papers were on clinical medicine and 36% of these were carried out in collaboration. Brazil had the highest production (22,442 papers) and the lower percentage of international collaboration (31%). North America accounts for 63% of collaborating countries. Only 8% of collaboration is between South American countries. Brazil has the highest tendency to collaborate with other South American countries.

Conclusions: Brazil is the South American country with the highest scientific production and indicators of centrality in South America. The most common collaboration networks are with North American countries.