Submissions

Author Guidelines

Preparing your manuscript

As you prepare your manuscript, it is critical to ensure that each section has clear headings and pertinent information. Additionally, it is vital to include a 'Declarations' section with all the necessary subheadings to prevent any potential delays or manuscript rejections. If you require any further assistance or have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to us.

Title page

• present a title that includes, if appropriate, the study design, e.g.:
  • "A versus B in the treatment of C: a randomized controlled trial", "X is a risk factor for Y: a case-control study", "What is the impact of factor X on subject Y: A systematic review."
  • or for non-clinical or non-research studies, a description of what the article reports
• list the full names and institutional addresses of all authors

It is imperative to list the name of a collaboration group as an author if it meets the authorship criteria. In cases where individual group members should be searchable through their PubMed records, kindly provide this information in the "Acknowledgements" section, following the instructions provided.

• It is important to note that Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT do not meet the authorship criteria due to the accountability that comes with the attribution of authorship, which cannot be effectively applied to LLMs. If the use of LLMs is necessary, it should be well-documented in the manuscript's Methods section or a suitable alternative section if the former is unavailable.

• indicate the corresponding author

Abstract

• To ensure clarity and concision, we kindly request that the Abstract does not exceed 350 words. We also ask that you avoid abbreviations and refrain from citing references within the abstract. For reports of randomized controlled trials, please adhere to the CONSORT extension for abstracts. The abstract should consist of distinct sections, including the Background, which establishes the context and purpose of the study; the Methods, which describes how the study was conducted and statistical tests utilized; the Results, which presents the primary findings; and the Conclusions, which provides a summary and potential implications.
• Registration for Trials: If your article presents findings on a healthcare intervention involving human participants, it is crucial to register it in the appropriate registry. The registration number and date of registration should be outlined in this section. If it was not registered before the enrollment of the first participant, it is advised to include the phrase 'retrospectively registered'. Please refer to our editorial policies for further details on trial registration.

Keywords

Academic articles should have 3-10 keywords that summarize the main content.

Background

The Background section of a research paper plays a crucial role in providing a comprehensive understanding of the study's context, objectives, and significance. It entails a thorough review and analysis of the existing literature, highlighting the gaps and limitations that the current research aims to address. This section serves as the foundation for the research work, establishing the rationale and justification for conducting the study while highlighting its potential contribution to the field.

Methods

To ensure a comprehensive methods section, it is essential to cover the study's aim, design, and setting, as well as the participant's characteristics or materials description. A detailed explanation of all processes, interventions, and comparisons should also be included, using generic drug names whenever possible. If proprietary brands are employed, their names should be enclosed in parentheses. Additionally, it is crucial to specify the type of statistical analysis employed and, if necessary, include a power calculation.

Results

It is imperative that the results of the study, along with any pertinent statistical analyses, are included in the body of the research. These findings should be presented either in the form of tables, figures or within the text itself, as deemed appropriate. Failure to do so could potentially undermine the academic rigor of the study and, thus, compromise its overall integrity.

Discussion

This section should discuss the implications of the findings in the context of existing research and highlight the limitations of the study.

Conclusions

The main conclusions of a study should be presented clearly and concisely, along with an explanation of their importance and relevance. This helps to ensure that the research is understood and valued within the academic community. It is important to provide this information so that readers can appreciate the significance of the study and its potential impact on the field.

List of abbreviations

In case of using abbreviations within the text, it is essential to define each abbreviation at the first instance of use. Additionally, a comprehensive list of all abbreviations used must be included.

Declarations

All manuscripts must contain the following sections under the heading' The following sections must be included in all manuscripts and placed under the designated heading, ‘Declarations':

• Ethics approval and consent to participate
• Consent for publication
• Availability of data and materials
• Competing interests
• Funding
• Authors' contributions
• Acknowledgements
• Authors' information (optional)

Please see below for details on the information to be included in these sections.

If any sections are irrelevant to your manuscript, please include the heading and write 'Not applicable' for that section. 

Ethics approval and consent to participate

When preparing manuscripts that report studies involving human participants, human data, or human tissue, it is imperative to include a statement regarding ethics approval and consent, even if approval was waived. Additionally, the name of the ethics committee that approved the study and the committee's reference number should be provided, if appropriate.

Authors conducting animal studies must include a statement on ethics approval. For experimental studies involving client-owned animals, they must also include a statement on informed consent from the owner.

See our editorial policies for more information.

If your manuscript does not report on or involve the use of any animal or human data or tissue, please state “Not applicable” in this section.

Consent for publication

To ensure that all personal data is handled ethically, we kindly ask that any manuscript containing an individual person's data (such as images, videos, or personal details) must obtain consent for publication from that person or their legal guardian if they are children. This includes all case reports. You may use your institutional consent form or our own, but please note that we will not require the form upon submission. However, we may request to see a copy at any point in the process, including after publication. For further information on our editorial policies regarding consent for publication, please refer to the appropriate section. If your manuscript contains no person's data, please state "Not applicable" in this section.

Availability of data and materials

It is mandatory for all manuscripts to feature a statement regarding the availability of data and materials. This statement must provide details on where data supporting the results discussed in the article can be located, including any relevant hyperlinks to publicly archived datasets that were analysed or generated during the study. When referring to data, we are specifically referring to the minimum dataset required to properly interpret, replicate, and build upon the findings outlined in the article. We acknowledge that there may be situations where it is not possible to share research data publicly, such as when individual privacy could be compromised. In such cases, the manuscript must still include a statement regarding data availability, along with any conditions for access.

• Data availability statements may take one of the following forms, or a combination of them, if needed for multiple datasets:
• The datasets generated and/or analysed during the current study are available in the [NAME] repository, [PERSISTENT WEB LINK TO DATASETS]
• The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
• All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article [and its supplementary information files].
• The datasets generated and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available due [REASON WHY DATA ARE NOT PUBLIC] but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
• Data sharing does not apply to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.
• The findings of this study are supported by data from [third party name]. However, please note that there are restrictions on the availability of this data as it was used under license for this study and is not publicly accessible. Nevertheless, the authors are happy to provide this data upon reasonable request and with permission of [third party name].
• If your manuscript does not include any data, kindly state 'Not applicable' in this section.

Competing interests

To ensure transparency, it is important to disclose any financial or non-financial competing interests in this section. For a comprehensive guide on this matter, please refer to our editorial policies. If there is any uncertainty about whether you or your co-authors have a competing interest, kindly reach out to the editorial office. To identify each author's competing interests, kindly use their initials in this section. In the event that there are no competing interests to report, kindly state "The authors declare that they have no competing interests".

Funding

It is necessary to disclose all sources of funding for the reported research. In case the funder played a role in the manuscript's conceptualization, design, data collection, analysis, decision to publish, or preparation, it must be declared.

Authors' contributions

In this section, it is important to specify the individual contributions of each author to the manuscript. Our editorial policies offer guidance and criteria for authorship. To refer to each author's contribution in this section, please use their initials. For example, "FC analyzed and interpreted the patient data pertaining to the hematological disease and transplant. RH conducted the histological examination of the kidney and made significant contributions to the manuscript's composition. All authors have reviewed and given their approval for the final manuscript."

Acknowledgements

It's important to recognize anyone who contributed to the article, even if they don't meet the criteria for authorship. This includes those who provided professional writing services or materials. Before including anyone in the Acknowledgements section, authors should obtain permission from them. If there is no one to acknowledge, simply write "Not applicable." For manuscripts involving a collaboration group, be sure to include the collaboration group's name on the title page and in the submission system, as well as the names of collaborating authors in the last paragraph of the "Acknowledgements" section. Please use the format First Name, Middle initial(s) (optional), and Last Name when listing authors. You may also include institution or country information for each author, but it should be consistent for all.

Keep in mind that individual names may not appear in the PubMed record immediately upon publication, as it takes time for PubMed to code this information.

Authors' information

This section is optional.

This section may be utilized to provide pertinent details about the author(s) that could assist the reader in comprehending the article and the author's point of view. This could encompass information on the authors' expertise, their present positions within institutions or societies, or other suitable background data. It is recommended that the authors be referred to by their initials. It is important to note that this section should not be employed to disclose any competing interests.

Footnotes

Utilizing footnotes is an excellent method of providing supplementary information, such as a citation for a reference found in the reference list. It's important to note that footnotes shouldn't solely consist of reference citations and should never contain the bibliographic details of a reference. Additionally, figures or tables should not be included in footnotes.

When creating footnotes, they should be numbered consecutively in relation to the text. For tables, superscript lower-case letters should be used (or asterisks for statistical data and significance values). Please keep in mind that reference symbols are not included in footnotes for the article's title or authors.

It is always best to use footnotes instead of endnotes for optimal clarity.