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ecancermedicalscience

Author Guidelines

Welcome to the Author Guidelines for ecancermedicalscience. Full details of how to prepare your article and the types of media that we accept are given below. Manuscripts must be submitted to ecancermedicalscience using the online manuscript submission process. To submit an article you must first register for free. Once logged in select Journal and then Submit Paper and follow the uploading instructions. Read the information below prior to submission for guidance.

ecancermedicalscience articles are indexed in the following repositories: PubMed, PubMed Central, Scopus, Web of Science Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), Embase, EBSCO and Google Scholar.

ecancermedicalscience follows the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals.  

ecancermedicalscience accepts Spanish submissions. Submit your Spanish article and if it passes the peer review process we will translate it into English and publish it for free. Please visit the Spanish edition of ecancer to submit your paper.  

Please note: ecancermedicalscience only accepts submissions which feature at least one author from a Lower and Middle Income Country (LMIC), or which have a significant impact on underserved settings. This decision has been taken in order to focus the journal's resources on proactively supporting authors from LMICs, where the majority of new cancer cases will occur over the next two decades, and the global collaborations that are vital to the development of key skills in this area.  

Article Information

Article Types

Upon submission, authors will be asked to identify the type of article. ecancermedicalscience accepts the following:  

  • Research Papers - Research articles have no page or word limit and may be in the areas of laboratory science, epidemiology, translational medicine, clinical trial reports (with positive or negative results) or nursing research. The methods section needs to prove that experiments carried out were appropriate to test the hypothesis. The conclusions must reflect whether or not the hypothesis is correct.
  • Case Report - Case Reports should be of clinical interest and/or educational value and ideally appeal to an international audience. They should also include a brief review of the literature so that the impact and significance of the Report is clear. Rare or novel cases are not enough to warrant the publication of a Case Report. Topics for case reports can be any aspect of clinical care: nursing, diagnostics, imaging, surgical intervention or radiotherapy techniques. ecancermedicalscience prefers reports accompanied by video or images, preferably in colour, but will accept simply written ones.  Authors should refer to the CARE Guidelines for advice on how to structure their Case Report.
  • Conference Report - ecancermedicalscience will publish conference reports from individuals, learned societies and advocacy groups. All conference reports will be reviewed by the editorial team. A full conference review can be from 1,000 to 6,000 words and should report the scientific findings from the event and provide readers with an insight of what was presented. Conference reports should be received no longer than two weeks after the close of the conference. All names of authors should be included. Illustrations, images, tables and video may be included. Two of our recent conference reports from St Gallen and ASH are good examples of what we look for.
  • Policy Papers -ecancermedicalscience is keen to attract Policy papers from individuals, learned societies, charities, advocacy groups or government agencies. They should be looked on as 'Green Papers' which, with the benefit of wide consultation through the journal, may develop into 'White Papers'.
  • Short Communication - A short communication is a concise but independent report representing a significant contribution to cancer understanding. To be considered for publication a short communication should present results which are of exceptional interest and are particularly topical and relevant. It should be no more than 4,000 words, however there is no restriction on figures, tables or video content. Short communications may include descriptions of training, of research tools, of novel techniques or presentations of preliminary results such as conference posters. ecancermedicalscience will respect conference embargoes.
  • Review Article - While the majority of our review articles will be commissioned, ecancermedicalscience is willing to consider unsolicited reviews in “niche" areas, and will be subject to full peer review. ecancermedicalscience is willing to consider mini-reviews of 4-5 pages in length, or full reviews, which can be up to 20 pages in length. Review articles should cover recent advances and, where appropriate, discuss up-to-date techniques.
  • Clinical Study - This is a study of a new medical treatment or medicine using human volunteers. ecancermedicalscience supports the guidelines set forth by the International  Committee on Medical Journal editors (http://www.icmje.org/index.html) and encourages clinical trials to be registered prior to submission in a suitable publicly accessible registry.
  • Editorials - Editorials are predominately commissioned by the ecancer staff. They should be around 1,000 words and should contain references where appropriate. An abstract and conclusion section must also be added. Like the other articles published by ecancer, editorials will be subject to peer review. 
  • Errata - Should an author discover an error in their previously published ecancer article, they should submit an erratum as soon as possible. This should contain the article title, authors and affiliations and the nature of the error. It should be submitted as normal and the Editor will deem its suitability for publication.  Any questions should be directed to the Journal team.

Article Formats

The main manuscript should be submitted as a Microsoft Word document.

ecancermedicalscience encourages the submission of movie clips with or without audio facility, to illustrate complicated surgery or new technologies. We especially welcome case studies that are animation and video based.

View or download our template manuscript paper

Layout of Manuscript

Article Classifications Upon submission authors will be asked to assign appropriate article classifications for their article, a list of which can be found at the bottom of every page on the ecancer site. Please tick all that apply.

Manuscript Sections

Where appropriate, articles should be broken down into the below sections. Please note that all articles should include a title page, abstract, keywords, conclusions and references. 

View or download our template manuscript paper.

  • Title page 
  • Abstract 
  • Keywords 
  • Background/Introduction
  • Methods
  • Results
  • Discussion
  • Conclusions
  • List of abbreviations used (if any)
  • Conflicts of interest
  • Acknowledgments
  • References
  • Figure legends (if any)
  • Tables and captions (if any)

Please note that sections in bold are required for all submissions, regardless of the type of manuscript. More information on the requirements for each section of your manuscript is provided below.

Title page

The full names and institutional addresses for all authors must be included on the title page. ORCID ids should also be included (if known). The corresponding author should also be indicated and the email address for this person should be provided.

All authors should have given final approval of the version to be published. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an acknowledgements section. Further information about authorship criteria can be found on the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors website. Further information on our authorship policies can be found here. 

Abstract

Abstracts should be a maximum of 300 words. Please note that all articles should include an abstract.

The abstract should clearly and concisely convey the conceptual advance and significance of the work to a broad readership. In particular, the abstract should contain a brief background of the question, a description of the results without extensive experimental detail, and a summary of the significance of the findings. Ideally the abstract will be one or two paragraphs and not broken down into sections.

Our electronic submission system will ask you to copy and paste this section at the “Submit Abstract” stage.

Keywords

Appropriate keywords should be provided for all submissions to ecancermedicalscience. The keywords should comply with the MeSH terms (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/). If you need help selecting the keywords, this service http://ii.nlm.nih.gov/Interactive/MeSHonDemand.shtml provides MeSH keywords for your text.

 

Background/Introduction

The background section should be written from the standpoint of researchers without specialist knowledge in that area and must clearly state the background to the research and its aims. Reports of clinical research should, where appropriate, include a summary of a search of the literature to indicate why this study was necessary and what it aimed to contribute to the field. The section should end with a very brief statement of what is being reported in the article.

Methods

This should include the design of the study, the setting, the type of participants or materials involved, a clear description of all interventions and comparisons, and the type of analysis used, including a power calculation if appropriate.

Results and Discussion

The results and discussion may be combined into a single section or presented separately. Results of statistical analysis should include, where appropriate, relative and absolute risks or risk reductions, and confidence intervals.

Please note: at any time up to five years after publication of research in the journal, authors may be asked to provide the raw data.

Conclusions

This should state clearly the main conclusions of the research and give a clear explanation of their importance and relevance. Summary illustrations may be included.

List of abbreviations

If abbreviations are used in the text they should either be defined in the text where first used, or a list should be provided.

Conflicts of interest

A conflict of interest exists when your interpretation of data or presentation of information may be influenced by your personal or financial relationship with other people or organisations. Authors should disclose any competing interests, (financial or otherwise) that may cause them embarrassment were they to become public after the publication of the manuscript.

Authors are required to declare all conflicts of interests, which will be listed at the end of published articles. Where an author declares no conflict of interest, the listing will read: "The author(s) declare that they have no conflict of interest."

When completing your declaration, please consider the following questions:

Financial conflict of interest
Please declare relationships with any organisation that might gain or lose financially from publication of the paper including:

  • Research support or employment (including salaries, equipment, supplies, reimbursement for attending symposia, and other expenses) during the past two years, currently or pending.
  • Any stocks or shares; and other interests, such as consultation fees or other remuneration.
  • Patents or patent applications whose value might be affected by publication.

Non-financial conflict of interest
Are there any non-financial competing interests (political, personal, religious, ideological, academic, intellectual, commercial or any other) to declare in relation to this manuscript? If so, please specify.

If you are unsure as to whether you, or one your co-authors, has a competing interest please state the conflict and the editorial team can review it.

Disclosure of results at a meeting

Presentation of data at a scientific meeting, as a poster, abstract, orally, on a CD, or as an abstract on the web, has no conflict with submission to ecancermedicalscience. However, divulging results in other circumstances (eg, investors' meetings) is discouraged and may jeopardise consideration of the manuscript.

Institutional review

Submission of a manuscript to ecancermedicalscience implies that all authors have read and agreed to its content - and that any experimental research that is reported in the manuscript has been performed with the approval of an appropriate ethics committee. Research carried out on humans must be in compliance with the Helsinki Declaration.

Any experimental research on animals must follow internationally recognised guidelines. Papers disregarding the welfare of experimental animals will be rejected. A statement to this effect must appear in the Methods section of the manuscript, including the name of the body which gave approval, with a reference number where appropriate. Informed consent must also be documented. Manuscripts may be rejected if the editorial office considers that the research has not been carried out within an ethical framework, e.g. if the severity of the experimental procedure is not justified by the value of the knowledge gained.

Authors may find the National Centre for the Replacement Refinement  and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) latest report “Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments”  or the United Kingdom's Co-ordinating Committee on Cancer Research (UKCCCR) 'Guidelines for the welfare and use of animals in cancer research' helpful, published in the British Journal of Cancer (2010) 102 1555-1557.

Acknowledgements

Please acknowledge anyone who contributed substantially towards the study but who does not meet the criteria for authorship. Please also include source(s) of funding. Authors must describe the role of the funding body, if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; and in the decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

The role of a medical writer must be included in the acknowledgements section, including their source(s) of funding.

References

All references should be from scientific and indexed sources.

All references must be numbered consecutively, in square brackets, in the order in which they are cited in the text. Reference citations should not appear in titles or headings.

Only articles and abstracts that have been published or are in press may be cited; unpublished work and personal communications do not need to be included in the reference list, but may be included in the text. Obtaining permission to quote personal communications and unpublished data from the cited author(s) is the responsibility of the author. Journal abbreviations follow Index Medicus/MEDLINE http://www2.bg.am.poznan.pl/czasopisma/medicus.php?lang=eng. Citations in the reference list should contain all named authors, regardless of how many there are.

Examples of the ecancermedicalscience reference style are shown below.

ecancermedicalscience Reference Style

ecancermedicalscience uses the Vancouver reference format.

Article within a journal

1. Brown B, Taylor P and Jones A (2004) Cancer incidence and mortality in Europe. Oncology 16, 481–48

Article within a journal supplement

2. Collins A and Burke S (2002) Decreased Risk of Stroke in Cancer patients Cancer Suppl. 2, 123–40

In press article

3. Jones S Clinical aspects of Bortezomib in Patients With Relapsed Mantle Cell Lymphoma, ECJ,  in press

Published abstract

4. Burger JA, Pavarotti J and Taylor A (2002) Gemcitabine Compared With Carboplatin in Patients With Recurrent Ovarian Cancer [abstract], JDO 22s200

Article within conference proceedings

5. Danby A (2002) Cancer and survival rates Proceedings of the Second European Breast Cancer Conference, 21–25 June 2002, Paris. Ed: Jones Y (London: McKenzies) 15–20

Whole conference proceedings

6. Smith A (Ed) (2002) Proceedings of the Second European Breast Cancer Conference, 21–25 June 2002, Paris. McKenzies

Book chapter, or article within a book

7. Wallis S (2000) From flower to treatment in Origins of Cancer Medicines, Volume 1, 3rd edition Ed: Veron A (London: McKenzies) 22–33

Whole issue of journal

8. Bailey B, Copthorne C and Dudley L (Eds) (1990) Oncology treatment in Breast Cancer Res, 9, 1–65

Complete book

9. Dulwich A (1999) Cells (London: University Press)

Monograph or book in a series

10. Blaire W (2000) Microscopic images in Human Cells, Ed: Smith R (London: Academic Press) 11–20 [Danby G (Series Editor): Perspectives in Cell Biology vol 2]

Book with institutional author

11. Advisory Committee on Animal Cloning (1999) Annual Report, Milan

PhD thesis

12. Collins B (1996) Study of Animal Models PhD thesis. Oxford University, Biology Department

Link/URL

13. The Genetic Database [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Genbank/]. Date accessed: dd/mm/yy

Figure/Table Guidelines

Images and figures

Figures are encouraged to be included within the text with the figure legends/captions immediately after the figure.

For each figure, the following information should be provided:

  • Figure number (in sequence, using Arabic numerals— i.e. Figure 1, 2, 3 etc)
  • short title of figure (maximum 15 words)

In order to keep the size of the final manuscript file manageable, authors may use lower resolution images within the text. However, high resolution images (minimum 300dpi) should also be provided as separate files. These may be uploaded when you are requested to 'upload images'. Each figure should include a single illustration. Colour figures are accepted. File size should not exceed 5MB.

Please note that it is the responsibility of the author(s) to obtain permission from the copyright holder to reproduce figures or tables that have previously been published elsewhere.

Tables

All tables must be cell-based, similar to that produced in a spreadsheet. Acceptable program file types are .doc, .csv and .xls (not .pdf).

Tables should have a caption that summarizes what is shown, maximum 15 words.

Larger datasets can be uploaded separately as additional files. Additional files will not be displayed in the final published PDF of the article, but will appear as supplementary data alongside the article.

Image enhancements

Enhancing digital images using image-editing software can increase the clarity of figures and is deemed by ecancermedicalscience as acceptable practice, provided it is carried out responsibly. However, no specific feature within an image may be enhanced, obscured, moved, removed, or introduced. Authors must provide details of significant electronic alterations to images in the text of the article.

Artifacts are not allowed to be introduced to the image, misrepresenting the original data. Adjustments of brightness, contrast, or colour balance are acceptable, if they are applied to the whole image and as long as they do not obscure, eliminate, or misrepresent any information presented in the original image.

Original, un-manipulated source images should be retained by the author. ecancermedicalscience has the right to request the original image files.

Image conversion tools

There are many software packages, capable of converting to and from different graphics formats, including PNG.

Good general tools for image conversion include PaintShop Pro, Photoshop or Paint for Windows, and ImageMagick, which is available on Macintosh, Windows and UNIX platforms.

e illustration

Photographs should be provided with a scale bar if appropriate. If photographs of patients' body parts, X-rays or scans are given as part of the manuscript, written and signed consent of the patient should be collected using the patient consent form. Please fill in this form and submit it when it is requested during the article submission process.

Video and animation

ecancermedicalscience encourages the submission of movie clips with or without audio facility, to illustrate complicated surgery or new technologies. We especially welcome case studies that are animation and video based.

The journal also accepts self-filmed author interviews - these will be assessed for editorial suitability and quality before acceptance.

If you wish to submit video or animation files, please contact us at editor@ecancer.org for more information

ecancermedicalscience accepts video and motion graphics in the following formats:

  • .mpeg
  • .mp4
  • .flv
  • .mov
  • .avi
  • .wmv
  • .fla
  • .swf

And many more.

Ideally videos should be unprocessed and in their largest, most original format. Video motion clips should be submitted with a title of a maximum of 15 words that summarizes the whole clip. They can be submitted by post or FTP.

Style and language

General

ecancermedicalscience can accept manuscripts written in English or Spanish.

Gene names should be italicised but protein products should be in plain text.

There is no restriction on the number of figures or tables that can be included with each article online. Figures and tables should be sequentially referenced.

ecancermedicalscience will edit accepted manuscripts for style or language if they are submitted by non-native English speakers. However authors are advised to write clearly and simply, and to have their article checked by colleagues before submission.

Data repositories

We encourage authors to deposit their work in these data repositories

How to cite

Articles in ecancermedicalscience should be cited in the same way as articles in a traditional journal, with one exception. Articles in this journal are not printed, they do not have page numbers. Instead, they have a Unique Article Number.

The following citation:

Author AN (2007) Article title ecancer 1 2

refers to article 2 from volume 1 of the journal.

As an online journal, ecancermedicalscience does not have issue numbers. Each volume corresponds to a calendar year.

Questions or Problems with Submission

Questions regarding the submission process or the online submission system should be addressed to editor@ecancer.org

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