Radiation oncology in Latin speaking countries: A link between Europe and Latin America

Abstract

The network of international collaboration in science traditionally has been dominated by English speaking countries, but this network is rapidly expanding at the global level. Between 40 and 50 countries appear in the center of the international network in 2011, and almost all nations are nowadays involved in international collaboration.1 The origin of Romance languages is Vulgar Latin spoken by the commoners of the Roman Empire. After its fall and fragmentation in the fifth century, the different languages evolved. Beginning in the 15th century, they expanded to other continents due to the Portuguese, Spanish, and French empires. Therefore, Latin-speaking Europe is considered as the area of Europe where Romance languages are either official, co-official, or significantly used. It is a major linguistic subdivision of Europe alongside Germanic- and Slavic-speaking subdivisions. The Latin European countries are mainly France, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. It also includes some regions from other countries, such as Wallonia in Belgium and the French- and Italian-speaking cantons of Switzerland as well as communities from other non-Romance European countries. Some Eastern Romance languages like Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian and Istro-Romanian are spread across the entire Balkans in small communities within Slavic-speaking countries, Greece and the European part of Turkey. The total population of all the Romance speaking areas in Europe is approximately 190,000,000. Spain and France are major players in the network in terms of international coauthorship relations. The polar position of Spain and France is noteworthy and can be considered as a consequence of their leading position in collaborations with Mediterranean and Romance language speaking countries.1 Despite the nearly global use of English as the language of research publication, there are still distinct collaborative groupings of Luso-/Hispanophone nations in Central and South America and Francophone countries in Africa.2 These networks point to cultural and economic factors underlying regional differentiation in the global patterns.1 Latin America is a wide region that includes 41 countries located in North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean region. The estimated population for 2013 is approximately 593 million. Ninety-seven percent of the population speaks Spanish or Portuguese, 64% speaks Spanish and 33% Portuguese, two languages fully intelligible between them.3–7 Spain and Portugal have remained a hub between the EU and Latin America.8 Indeed, Presmanes and Zumelzu9 reported that coauthorship relations among South American countries are less developed than those between some of these Latin American countries and Spain. Countries with languages other than Spanish or Portuguese are peripheral to this network as are some nations in Central America.1 This special issue provides a brief overview of the current state of radiation oncology in Latin speaking countries and the outlook for the future.