Manuscript Types

Surgical Case Reports welcomes the following article types.

Case Reports

Case reports should be relevant to practical and scientific aspects of surgery and be presented as concisely as possible.

Common cases are welcome, as long as they are educationally valuable and provide new learning opportunities for our readership.

Letters to the Editor

A substantial re-analysis of a previously published article in Surgical Case Reports or in another journal. An article that may not cover 'standard research' but that is of general interest to the broad readership of Surgical Case Reports. A brief report of cases or research findings adequate for the journal's scope and of particular interest to the community.

The Letter to the Editor for Surgical Case Reports should start with "To the Editor", and contain the body of the article of not longer than 500 words which may be broken into subsections with short, informative headings. No Abstract is necessary.

Letters to the Editor may be edited for clarity or length and may be subject to peer review at the editors' discretion. Short reports of research work will be peer reviewed.

Manuscript Submission

All manuscripts must be submitted via the journal’s online submission system, Editorial Manager at https://www.editorialmanager.com/scrj/.

The manuscript text should be submitted in Microsoft Word, and include Title page, Abstract, Main text, Declarations, References, Figure legends, and Tables with each title.

Figures must NOT be embedded within the manuscript file.

If included in the submission, each set of materials listed below must be cited appropriately in the manuscript text. A title for each Table, Figure or Video must be included.

  1. Text (Title page, Abstract - Legends): MS Word
  2. Tables: MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint (saving as an image is not a valid format)
  3. Figures: JPEG, TIF, PNG, PowerPoint
  4. Video: AVI, MP4, MPEG

If you encounter any problems with online submission, please contact the Editorial Office as per the details in the Contact section.

Manuscript Preparation

Style

The manuscripts should be typed double-spaced throughout with 12-point type face, formatted for A4 paper leaving margins of at least 2.5 cm (1 inch).

Line and page numbers must be indicated.

English standards

Manuscripts should be written in clear, grammatically correct English. Authors whose native language is not English are encouraged to have their manuscript checked by a native English speaker or by an editing service prior to submission. If a manuscript is not clear due to poor English, it may be rejected without undergoing peer review. A concise style avoiding unnecessary jargon is preferred.

Cover Letter

A cover letter that includes the following information.

  • An explanation of why your manuscript should be published in Surgical Case Reports
  • An explanation of any issues relating to journal policies
  • A declaration of any potential competing interests
  • Confirmation that the content of the manuscript has not been published, or submitted for publication elsewhere

Title page

The title page should comprise the following.

  1. A concise but informative title. Only the first letter of each word should be capitalized, except for conjunctions, articles, or prepositions unless the first word of the title.
  2. Authors’ full names and ORCID ID (if they have), without academic qualifications
  3. Full names of the department(s) and institution(s) in which the research was undertaken, together with the location (city, state, and nation). Use superscript numbers to indicate authors from different institutions.
  4. Three to ten informative keywords (or short phrases), based on the Index Medicus or similar.
  5. Corresponding author’s name, full address, telephone and e-mail address. Only one corresponding author is permitted.

Title

The title should be concise and informative; it should describe the content of the article briefly but clearly and is important for search purposes by third-party services. Do not use abbreviations in the title, except those used generally in related fields and avoid formulae where possible.

Authors and affiliations

Provide the full names of the author(s). In addition, provide the full names and addresses of institutions (including laboratory, department, institute and/or university, city, state and country). When authors belong to different institutions, their respective addresses should be indicated by superscript numbers. When authors have new addresses, they should be given in a footnote and should be indicated by superscript symbols (such as * and **).

Keywords

Three to ten keywords representing the main content of the article.

Units

SI or SI-derived units should be used. More information on SI units is available at the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM) website.

  • Length: m
  • Mass: kg
  • Time: s
  • Temperature: ℃

Method of stating the names of devices

For all equipment and products mentioned in the text, include the model name/number, the manufacturer and its location (city, state, country) in parentheses in the text. For statistical software, specify the version, manufacturer, and manufacturer's location.

Abstract

For Case Reports

The abstract should not exceed 350 words. Please minimize the use of abbreviations and do not cite references in the abstract. The abstract must include the following separate sections:

Introduction: why the case should be reported and its novelty

Case presentation: a brief description of the patient’s clinical and demographic details, the diagnosis, any interventions and the outcomes

Conclusions: a brief summary of the clinical impact or potential implications of the case report

For Letters to the Editor

The abstract should briefly summarize the aim, findings or purpose of the article. Please minimize the use of abbreviations and do not cite references in the abstract.

Abbreviations

Each abbreviation should be defined in parentheses together with its non-abbreviated term when it first appears in the text (except in the Title and Abstract) and legends of each figure and table.

A list of abbreviations should be provided between Abstract and 'Introduction' section of the manuscript.

Main text

for Case Reports

Introduction

The Introduction section should explain the background to the case report or study, its aims, a summary of the existing literature.

Case presentation

This section should include a description of the patient’s relevant demographic details, medical history, symptoms and signs, treatment or intervention, outcomes and any other significant details.

Discussion (optional)

Author may add this section to discuss the implications of the outcomes from the case, any practical issues involved or any other issues not covered in other sections.

Conclusions

This should state clearly the main conclusions and include an explanation of their relevance or importance to the field.

Funding

All sources of funding for the research reported should be declared. The role of the funding body in the design of the study and collection, analysis, and interpretation of data and in writing the manuscript should be declared.

Authors' contributions

The individual contributions of authors to the manuscript should be specified in this section.

Acknowledgements

Please acknowledge anyone who contributed towards the article who does not meet the criteria for authorship including anyone who provided professional writing services or materials.

Authors should obtain permission to acknowledge from all those mentioned in the Acknowledgements section.

Authors' information

You may choose to use this section to include any relevant information about the author(s) that may aid the reader's interpretation of the article, and understand the standpoint of the author(s). This may include details about the authors' qualifications, current positions they hold at institutions or societies, or any other relevant background information. Please refer to authors using their initials. Note this section should not be used to describe any competing interests.

Endnotes

Endnotes should be designated within the text using a superscript lowercase letter and all notes (along with their corresponding letter) should be included in the Endnotes section. Please format this section in a paragraph rather than a list.

Availability of data and materials

"The dataset(s) supporting the conclusions of this article is(are) available in the [repository name] repository, [unique persistent identifier and hyperlink to dataset(s) in http:// format]."

The following format is required when data are included as additional files:

"The dataset(s) supporting the conclusions of this article is(are) included within the article (and its additional file(s))."

for Letters to the Editor

This should contain the body of the article, and may also be broken into subsections with short, informative headings.

Declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Manuscripts reporting studies involving human participants, human data or human tissue must:

include a statement on ethics approval and consent (even where the need for approval was waived)

include the name of the ethics committee that approved the study and the committee’s reference number if appropriate

Studies involving animals must include a statement on ethics approval.

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

Consent for publication

If your manuscript contains any individual person’s data in any form, consent to publish must be obtained from that person, or in the case of children, their parent or legal guardian. All presentations of case reports must have consent to publish.

If your manuscript does not contain any individual persons data, please state “Not applicable” in this section.

Competing interests

All financial and non-financial competing interests must be declared in this section. A competing interests form is available here. All authors of the manuscript should compete this form and return it to the corresponding author, who should upload these to the submission system along with the manuscript files.

If you are unsure whether you or any of your co-authors have a competing interest please contact the Editorial Office.

References

Number references consecutively in the order cited in the text, not alphabetically. Identify references in text, tables, and legends by superscript Arabic numerals in square brackets on the line.

Examples:

- Ames et al. [1] reported…

- Negotiation research spans many disciplines [3].

- This result was later contradicted by Becker and Seligman [5].

- This effect has been widely studied [1–3, 7].

The list of references should only include works that are cited in the text and that have been published or accepted for publication. Accuracy of reference data is the author’s responsibility. Personal communications and unpublished data should be cited in parentheses in the text. If such a citation is from someone other than the authors, a letter should be submitted in which the direct quotation is given with the author’s signature.

Provide inclusive page numbers for all references. In citation of articles list the first three authors only, and add “et al” if there are four or more authors. Journal titles should be abbreviated according to Index Medicus. For papers written in Japanese, follow the style of example 2. If such a paper has an English abstract, see example 3. For papers cited only by DOI, see example 4. For online materials, write the details in this order: name of webmaster, page title, URL, last access date, see example 7.

Examples:

  1. Mulford DK, Dawson AE. Atypia in fine-needle aspiration cytology of nonpalpable and palpable mammographically detected breast lesions. Acta Cytol. 1994; 38:9–17.
  2. Nakajima T. Tabular analysis of 10 000 cases of gastric cancer in the Cancer Institute Hospital (in Japanese). Gan to Kagakuryoho (Jpn J Cancer Chemother). 1994; 21:1813–97.
  3. Imada T, Takehana T, Rino Y, et al. Indications for pylorus-preserving gastrectomy for early gastric cancer (in Japanese with English abstract). Nihon Syokakigeka Gakkaizasshi (Jpn J Gastroenterol Surg). 1995; 28:2248–55.
  4. Mitchell AJ, Vaze A, Rao S. Clinical diagnosis of depression in primary care: a meta-analysis. Lancet. 2009; doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(09)60879-5.
  5. Watanabe H, Jass JR, Sobin LH. Histopathological typing of oesophageal and gastric tumours, 2nd ed. Berlin Heidelberg New York: Springer; 1990. p. 23.
  6. Wyatt JI. Helicobacter pylori, duodenitis and duodenal ulceration. In: Rathbone BJ, Heatley RV, editors. Helicobacter pylori and gastroduodenal disease. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell; 1992. p. 140–9.
  7. Doe J. Title of subordinate document. In: The dictionary of substances and their effects. Royal Society of Chemistry. 1999. http://www.rsc.org/dose/title of subordinate document. Accessed 15 Jan 1999.

Tables

Tables should be numbered and cited in the text in sequence using Arabic numerals (i.e. Table 1, Table 2 etc.).

All tables should be placed at the end of the main manuscript file or can be submitted as a separate file. Please cite and indicate where the table should appear at the relevant location in the text file so that the table can be added in the correct place during production.

Larger datasets, or tables too wide for A4 can be uploaded as additional files. Please see "Electronic Supplementary Material" section for more information.

Tabular data provided as additional files can be uploaded as an Excel spreadsheet (.xls) or comma separated values (.csv). Please use the standard file extensions.

Table titles (max 15 words) should be included above the table, and legends (max 300 words) should be included underneath the table.

Tables should not be embedded as figures or spreadsheet files, but should be formatted using ‘Table object’ function in Word/Excel/PowerPoint.

Color and shading may not be used. Parts of the table can be highlighted using superscript, numbering, lettering, symbols or bold text, the meaning of which should be explained in a table legend.

Commas should not be used to indicate numerical values.

Figures

Figure titles (max 15 words) and legends (max 300 words) should be typed together on a new page after the References section of the main manuscript file, not in the graphic file.

Tables should NOT be submitted as figures but should be included at the end of the main manuscript file.

Multi-panel figures (those with parts a, b, c, d etc.) should be submitted as a single composite file that contains all parts of the figure.

Figures should be numbered in the order they are first mentioned in the text, and uploaded in this order.

Figures should be uploaded in the correct orientation.

Figure keys should be incorporated into the graphic, not into the legend of the figure.

Each figure should be closely cropped to minimize the amount of white space surrounding the illustration.

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. In order for all figures to be open access, authors must have permission from the rights holder if they wish to include images that have been published elsewhere in non open access journals. Permission should be indicated in the figure legend, and the original source included in the reference list.

Supplementary material

Supplementary material adds, but is not essential, to a reader’s understanding of a manuscript. Authors are encouraged to submit supplementary material for online-only publication. Supplementary material may comprise data, text, audio or movie files, and is published online alongside the accepted manuscript.

If supplying any supplementary material, the text must make specific mention of the material as a citation, similar to that of figures and tables.

As supplementary material is peer-reviewed, authors must submit it in its final form as part of their manuscript submission.

Supplementary material will be published as received from the author without any conversion, editing, or reformatting. After a manuscript has been accepted for publication, authors may not make any changes to the supplementary material.

Forms

COI Disclosure Form

License to Publish

Accepted Manuscripts

Manuscripts that are accepted for publication are copyedited and typeset by the journal’s production company before publication.

All communication regarding accepted manuscripts is with the corresponding author.

Proofs

Page proofs are sent to the corresponding author, who should check and return them within 48 hours. Only essential corrections to typesetting errors or omissions are accepted; excessive changes are not permitted at the proofing stage.

Reprints

Order forms for reprints are sent with the proofs to the corresponding author and should be returned with the proofs.