Submissions

Author Guidelines

Annals of Biomedical and Clinical Research is an international peer reviewed journal, open to all scientists dealing with all aspects of biomedical and clinical research. The journal publishes original research, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, professional papers, clinical trials, preliminary communications, conference papers, case reports, brief reports, news and book reviews, letters to the editor, provided they have not been published elsewhere.

All manuscripts should be written in English. The preparation and submission of manuscripts to ABCR should follow the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals issued by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), available at: https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/.

Manuscript Submission

Manuscripts should be submitted over the online submission system available at Journal website: http://abcr-mefmo.org. ABCR applies a double-anonymized peer-review process. Therefore, the main manuscript file must not contain the authors’ names, affiliations, ORCID identifiers, acknowledgments, contribution statements, conflict-of-interest declarations, funding information, or other details that could reveal the authors’ identities. Such information should be provided on a separate title page or in the designated fields of the submission system.

Authors should also remove identifying information from document properties and file metadata.

A cover letter must accompany every submission and should include:

• the name and contact details of the corresponding author.
• a brief description of the study and its relevance to the journal.
• the proposed manuscript category.
• confirmation that the manuscript has not been published previously and is not under consideration by another journal.
• disclosure of previous publications or submissions that could constitute duplicate, overlapping, or redundant publication.
• copies or references to related manuscripts, reports, preprints, or other materials when relevant.
• disclosure of financial and non-financial relationships or activities that could constitute a potential conflict of interest.
• confirmation that all listed authors meet the authorship criteria.
• confirmation that all authors have read and approved the submitted version.
• confirmation that the manuscript represents honest and original work.
• confirmation that all authors accept responsibility for the integrity of the work.
• disclosure of any use of artificial intelligence-assisted technologies, as specified below; and
• the contact details of the author responsible for communication with the journal and with the other authors during revision and proof approval.

The corresponding author must provide an ORCID iD. ORCID iDs are strongly encouraged for all authors.

Authors are invited to suggest two potential reviewers with appropriate expertise. Suggested reviewers should not have recent collaborations, institutional affiliations, personal relationships, or other conflicts of interest with any of the authors. The Editorial Board is not obligated to invite the suggested reviewers.

After submission, the corresponding author will receive confirmation that the manuscript has been received. Manuscripts that do not comply with these instructions or fall outside the scope of the journal may be returned without external peer review.

Manuscripts considered suitable for peer review will normally be evaluated anonymously by at least two independent reviewers. Authors may be invited to revise the manuscript in response to the reviewers’ and editors’ comments. A point-by-point response explaining how each comment has been addressed should accompany the revised manuscript.

The Editorial Board makes the final decision regarding acceptance, revision, or rejection. Following acceptance, the corresponding author will receive page proofs for the correction of typographical or production errors. Substantial changes to the content or authorship are not normally permitted at the proof stage.

Preparing a Manuscript for Submission

General Principles

Original research articles should normally be organized into the following sections: Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgments, References Tables and Figures, and Figure legends sections.

Other article types may require different formats. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses, case reports, narrative reviews, editorials, brief reports, and letters may use structures appropriate to their content and relevant reporting guidelines.

Manuscripts must be prepared in Microsoft Word using A4 page format and margins of 25 mm. Times New Roman, 12-point font, and double-line spacing should be used throughout the manuscript, including the abstract, main text, references, acknowledgments, tables, and figure legends. All pages should be numbered consecutively, beginning with the title page, with page numbers placed in the lower-right corner. Continuous line numbering is recommended.

The cover letter, title page, and main anonymized manuscript should be submitted as separate files. Tables and figure legends may be included at the end of the main manuscript. Figures may be uploaded separately when required by the submission system.

Reporting Guidelines

Authors must prepare manuscripts in accordance with the reporting guideline appropriate to the study design. Relevant guidelines and checklists are available through the EQUATOR Network.

The following guidelines should be used where applicable:

• STROBE for observational studies, including cohort, case-control, and cross-sectional studies.
• CONSORT for randomized controlled trials.
• PRISMA for systematic reviews and meta-analyses.
• CARE for case reports.
• STARD for diagnostic accuracy studies.
• TRIPOD for studies developing or validating prediction models.
• COREQ or SRQR for qualitative research.
• ARRIVE for animal research.
• SQUIRE for quality-improvement studies; and
• relevant guideline extensions for specific study designs, interventions, populations, or types of data.

For observational studies, authors must submit a completed STROBE checklist, indicating the manuscript page on which each item is addressed. The checklist should be uploaded as a supplementary submission file and should not replace the information required in the manuscript.

The corresponding checklist and, where applicable, a participant flow diagram should also be submitted for other study designs. Failure to submit a required reporting checklist may result in the manuscript being returned before peer review.

Manuscript Sections

Title Page

The title page must be submitted separately from the anonymized manuscript and should contain: the complete article title, a short running title, the full names of all authors, each author’s institutional affiliation, the ORCID iD of all authors; the postal and email address of the corresponding author, sources of financial and material support, conflict-of-interest declarations, the authors’ contribution statement, acknowledgments, the word count for the main text, the word count for the abstract, the number of tables and figures, a data-availability statement, an ethics approval and informed-consent statement, where applicable; and a declaration concerning the use of artificial intelligence-assisted technologies.

Article title should provide a distilled description of the complete article. It is recommended that information about the study design be a part of the title (particularly important for randomized trials and systematic reviews and meta-analyses).

Author information should provide full first and second names of all authors; the name of the department(s) and institution(s) or organizations where they work should be specified; e-mail addresses of all corresponding authors should be listed.

Authorship and CRediT Contribution Statement

Authorship must comply with the four ICMJE authorship criteria. Each author should have:

1. made a substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work, or to the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data.
2. drafted the manuscript or revised it critically for important intellectual content.
3. approved the final version to be published; and
4. agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

Individuals who contributed to the work but do not meet all authorship criteria should be acknowledged, subject to their written permission.

For manuscripts with two or more authors, a contribution statement based on the CRediT Contributor Roles Taxonomy is required. Applicable roles should be assigned to each author:

Conceptualization – Ideas, formulation or evolution of overarching research goals and aims.

Data curation – Management activities to annotate (produce metadata), scrub data and maintain research data (including software code, where it is necessary for interpreting the data itself) for initial use and later re-use.

Formal analysis – Application of statistical, mathematical, computational, or other formal techniques to analyze or synthesize study data.

Funding acquisition ​- Acquisition of the financial support for the project leading to this publication.

Investigation – ​Conducting a research and investigation process, specifically performing the experiments, or data/evidence collection.

Methodology – Development or design of methodology; creation of models.

Project administration – Management and coordination responsibility for the research activity planning and execution.

Resources – Provision of study materials, reagents, materials, patients, laboratory samples, animals, instrumentation, computing resources, or other analysis tools.

Software – Programming, software development; designing computer programs; implementation of the computer code and supporting algorithms; testing of existing code components.

Supervision – Oversight and leadership responsibility for the research activity planning and execution, including mentorship external to the core team.

Validation – Verification, whether as a part of the activity or separate, of the overall replication/reproducibility of results/experiments and other research outputs.

Visualization – Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically visualization/data presentation.

Writing – original draft – ​Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically writing the initial draft (including substantive translation).

Writing – review & editing – Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work by those from the original research group, specifically critical review, commentary or revision – including pre- or post-publication stages.

An author may be assigned more than one role, and the same role may be assigned to several authors. CRediT describes individual contributions but does not determine who qualifies for authorship. All listed authors must still meet the ICMJE authorship criteria.

The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that the contribution statement is accurate and has been approved by all authors.

Example:

Author Contributions: A.B.: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Writing – original draft. C.D.: Formal analysis, Validation, Visualization. E.F.: Supervision, Writing – review & editing. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript and agreed to be accountable for the work.

Changes to the author list or order after submission must be explained in writing and approved by all authors, including any author being added or removed. The Editorial Board reserves the right to request further documentation.

Disclaimers: An example of a disclaimer is an author’s statement that the views expressed in the submitted article are his or her own and not an official position of the institution or funder.

Source(s) of support: Authors must identify all financial and material support that facilitated the research or preparation of the manuscript, including grants, equipment, medicines, statistical support, and professional writing or editing services. The funder’s role in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, and the decision to submit the manuscript should be stated. If the funder had no such role, this should be declared.

Word count: A word count should be listed for the paper’s text, excluding its abstract, acknowledgments, tables, figure legends, and references. A separate word count for the abstract should be provided.

Conflict of interest declaration: All authors should report any potential conflicts of interest (research funding, grants, sponsorship, competing interests etc.). According to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE): "Conflict of interest exists when an author (or the author's institution) has financial (employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria and paid expert testimony) or personal relationship, academic competition or intellectual passion that inappropriately influences his actions." (Available at: http:// www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-andresponsibilities/ author-responsibilities--conflicts-of-interest.html). If no conflicts exist, the manuscript should contain the following statement: Conflict of Interest: The authors declare no conflicts of interest. The editors may request completion of the current ICMJE disclosure form.

Acknowledgments: Individuals who contributed to the work but do not meet the criteria for authorship may be listed in the Acknowledgments section. Authors must obtain permission from acknowledged individuals because acknowledgment may imply endorsement of the work.

Funding: Financial support, technical assistance, language editing, professional writing support, and other relevant contributions should be disclosed.

Ethical background statements: In this section authors must provide the name of Institutional Review Board along with approval number, informed consent statement, and data availability statement.

Research involving human participants, identifiable human material, or identifiable data must comply with the Declaration of Helsinki and applicable national and institutional requirements.

The manuscript should state: the name of the approving ethics committee or institutional review board; the approval number and date, where available; whether written or oral informed consent was obtained; whether consent for publication was obtained when identifiable information is presented; and the justification for any waiver of ethical approval or informed consent.

Research involving animals must identify the approving authority and confirm compliance with applicable animal-welfare standards.

Every research article should include a data-availability statement explaining whether and how the data, analytic code, study protocol, or other research materials can be accessed. Restrictions arising from privacy, consent, ethics approval, contractual obligations, or legal requirements should be explained.

Use of Artificial Intelligence-Assisted Technologies: Artificial intelligence-assisted technologies, including generative AI tools and large language models, cannot be listed as authors or co-authors because they cannot take responsibility for the accuracy, integrity, originality, or ethical conduct of the work. Authors remain fully responsible for all submitted content, including content produced or modified with the assistance of AI. Authors must carefully review and verify AI-assisted output for factual accuracy, appropriate interpretation, originality, potential bias, and correct attribution. AI-generated references must not be used without verification against the original sources.

Authors must disclose the use of generative AI or other AI-assisted technologies in manuscript preparation. The declaration should identify: the name of the tool and its provider; the version or access date, when relevant; the purpose for which the tool was used; and the sections or aspects of the manuscript affected. Use of AI for language improvement, translation, drafting, summarization, data analysis, image generation, or production of tables, figures, or code should be disclosed. AI use that forms part of the research methodology must be described in sufficient detail in the Methods section to permit evaluation or replication.

A suggested declaration is:

Declaration of AI-Assisted Technology Use: During the preparation of this manuscript, the authors used [tool and provider] for [specific purpose]. The authors reviewed and edited the resulting content and take full responsibility for the accuracy, integrity, and originality of the final manuscript.

If no AI-assisted technology was used, the authors may state:

Declaration of AI-Assisted Technology Use: The authors did not use generative artificial intelligence or AI-assisted technologies in the preparation of this manuscript. Routine tools that perform basic spelling, grammar, formatting, or reference-management functions without generating substantive content generally do not require disclosure. Authors must not upload confidential, identifiable, copyrighted, unpublished, or otherwise protected material to an AI service unless they have the necessary authorization, and the service provides appropriate safeguards. AI-generated or AI-manipulated images, figures, and primary research data are not permitted unless their generation or modification is an explicit part of the research methodology. In such cases, the tool, version, prompts or relevant parameters, validation procedures, and extent of human oversight must be transparently reported. The editors may request additional information about AI use. Failure to disclose material AI assistance may be treated as a breach of publication ethics.

Abstract

The abstract should accurately represent the content of the article and should not exceed 250 words unless otherwise specified for a particular article type. Original research, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses require structured abstracts. The abstract should provide the context or background for the study and should state the study’s purpose, methods (selection of study participants, settings, measurements, analytical methods), main findings (giving specific effect sizes and their statistical and clinical significance, if possible), and principal conclusions.

Clinical trial abstracts should include items that the CONSORT group has identified as essential (http://www.consort-statement.org/resources/downloads/extensions/consort-extension-for-abstracts-2008pdf/). The abstract should not contain references or undefined abbreviations.

Keywords

The abstract should be followed by three to ten keywords. Whenever possible, keywords should be selected from the US National Library of Medicine’s Medical Subject Headings (MeSH).

Introduction

The Introduction should provide the scientific context, explain the nature and significance of the problem, identify the relevant knowledge gap, and present the rationale for the study. Only directly relevant references should be cited. The Introduction should not contain results or conclusions from the submitted work. The final paragraph should clearly state the study objective, research question, or hypothesis.

Materials and methods

The Materials and Methods section should normally include the following subsections, where applicable:

• Study design and setting
• Subjects (if research includes human subjects) or Materials (otherwise)
• Sample-size determination
• Methods
• Statistical analysis

Selection and Description of Participants

Clearly describe the selection of observational or experimental participants (healthy individuals or patients, including controls), including eligibility and exclusion criteria, recruitment procedures, and a description of the source population. The Methods section should explain how the study sample was obtained and, where relevant, how the sample size was determined. Reasons for non-participation, withdrawal, loss to follow-up, or exclusion from analysis should be reported when available. Because the relevance of such variables as age, sex, or ethnicity is not always known at the time of study design, researchers should aim for inclusion of representative populations into all study types and at a minimum provide descriptive data for these and other relevant demographic variables. Ensure correct use of the terms sex (when reporting biological factors) and gender (identity, psychosocial or cultural factors), and, unless inappropriate, report the sex and/or gender of study participants, the sex of animals or cells, and describe the methods used to determine sex and gender. If the study was done involving an exclusive population, for example in only one sex, authors should justify why, except in obvious cases (e.g., prostate cancer). Authors should define how they determined race or ethnicity and justify their relevance. Authors should use neutral, precise, and respectful language to describe study participants and avoid the use of terminology that might stigmatize participants.

Methods

The guiding principle of the Methods section should be clarity about how and why a study was done in a particular way. The Methods section should aim to be sufficiently detailed such that others with access to the data would be able to reproduce the results. Methods section should include only information that was available at the time the plan or protocol for the study was being written; all information obtained during the study belongs in the Results section. If an organization was paid or otherwise contracted to help conduct the research (examples include data collection and management), then this should be detailed in the methods. The Methods section should include a statement indicating that the research was approved by an independent local, regional or national review body (e.g., ethics committee, institutional review board). If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration, the authors must explain the rationale for their approach and demonstrate that the local, regional or national review body explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study.

Technical Information

Specify the study’s main and secondary objectives— usually identified as primary and secondary outcomes. Identify methods, equipment (give the manufacturer’s name and address in parentheses), and procedures in sufficient detail to allow others to reproduce the results. Give references to established methods, including statistical methods; provide references and brief descriptions for methods that have been published but are not well-known; describe new or substantially modified methods, give the reasons for using them, and evaluate their limitations. Identify precisely all drugs and chemicals used, including generic name(s), dose(s), and route(s) of administration. Identify appropriate scientific names and gene names. Clinical trials should be prospectively registered in a publicly accessible registry before enrolment of the first participant. The registry name and registration number should be reported in the manuscript.

Statistical Analysis Describe statistical methods with enough detail to enable a knowledgeable reader with access to the original data to judge its appropriateness for the study and to verify the reported results. When possible, quantify findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty (such as confidence intervals), avoid relying solely on null-hypothesis significance testing or p values. Continuously distributed variables should be analyzed as continuous variables whenever appropriate, artificial categorization is not recommended. Whenever possible, artificial dichotomies or categorizations should be avoided. A possible exception is if there are some difficulties to operationalize a construct as a unitary, continuous variable such as hypertension, even in this case measuring of continuous scores of systolic and diastolic blood pressures is preferable. The availability of widely used clinical cut points for a scale or measure is not an acceptable rationale for creating artificial categories in primary analysis. One-tailed hypothesis tests is not acceptable if there is a two-tailed alternative. Avoid relying solely on statistical hypothesis testing, such as p values, which fail to convey important information about effect size and precision of estimates. References for the design of the study and statistical methods should be to standard works when possible (with pages stated). In the data presenting do not use pie charts. Also do not use three-dimensional chart unless you don’t have more than two variables. Statistical significance should be symbolized with small letter p. Significance values should be written with an absolute number such as p=0.003 instead of p<0.05. Exact p values should generally be reported to three decimal places. Values smaller than 0.001 should be reported as p < 0.001 rather than p = 0.000. Values rounded to 1.000 should be reported as p > 0.999 rather than p = 1.000. Authors should describe methods used to assess statistical assumptions, explain how missing data were handled, distinguish primary, secondary, subgroup, sensitivity, and exploratory analyses, report adjustments for multiple comparisons when appropriate, report methods used for model validation and assessment of model performance where applicable, define statistical terms, abbreviations, and symbols. The rules for including or excluding variables from multivariable models should be specified by the investigators. Reasons and procedures for including or excluding covariates in multivariable models should be well justified and clearly explained. The use of automated stepwise variable selection procedures is discouraged unless the results are properly cross validated. Automated stepwise techniques often produce wildly unreliable results. Sole reliance on p values for variable selection is not acceptable because that the practice of pre-screening covariates by choosing ones with significant univariate p values is well known to bias the results of multiple regression models. The choice of covariates should be based as much as possible on external information such as previous research and clinical knowledge. When confronted with too many predictors for the data at hand, it is recommended to eliminate redundant predictors or combine ones that are highly correlated. Define statistical terms, abbreviations, and most symbols. Specify the statistical software package(s) and versions used. 

Results

Present your results in logical sequence in the text, tables, and figures, giving the main or most important findings first. Authors should report the number of participants at each relevant stage of the study, explain exclusions from each analysis, provide effect estimates and measures of precision, report adverse events and unintended effects when relevant, and distinguish prespecified analyses from exploratory analyses. Do not repeat the data presented in the tables or figures in the text; emphasize or summarize only the most important observations. Provide data on all primary and secondary outcomes identified in the Methods section. Give numeric results not only as derivatives (e.g., percentages) but also as the absolute numbers from which the derivatives were calculated, and specify the statistical significance attached to them, if any. Restrict tables and figures to those needed to explain the argument of the paper and to assess supporting data. Use graphs as an alternative to tables with many entries; do not duplicate data in graphs and tables. Measurements should be reported in SI units, except where conventional non-SI units are standard in clinical practice and are clearly identified.

Discussion

The Discussion should begin with a concise summary of the principal findings without repeating the Results section in detail. Emphasize the new and important aspects of your study, interpret the findings in relation to the study objectives and put your findings in the context of the totality of the relevant evidence. Discuss plausible mechanisms or explanations, distinguish statistical significance from clinical importance, consider the generalizability of the findings. Avoid causal language when the study design supports only an association. State the strengths and limitations of your study and explore the implications of your findings for future research and for clinical practice or policy. Discuss potential sources of bias and imprecision Discuss the influence or association of variables, such as sex and/or gender, on your findings, where appropriate, and the limitations of the data. Do not repeat in detail data or other information given in other parts of the manuscript, such as in the Introduction or the Results section. Conclusions must be supported by the reported results and consistent with the study design. Distinguish between clinical and statistical significance and avoid making statements on economic benefits and costs unless the manuscript includes the appropriate economic data and analyses. New hypotheses may be proposed when justified but must be clearly identified as hypotheses.

References

General Considerations

Authors should cite original research sources whenever possible and should avoid unnecessary citation of reviews when the original evidence is available. References must not be selected primarily to promote the interests of authors, editors, reviewers, institutions, or journals. Relevant evidence should not be omitted because it contradicts the authors’ findings or interpretation. Conference abstracts should generally not be used as references when a complete peer-reviewed report is available. When an abstract is essential and no full publication exists, it should be clearly identified as a conference abstract. Articles accepted for publication but not yet published may be cited as “in press” or “forthcoming.” Manuscripts that have been submitted but not accepted should be cited in the text as unpublished data or unpublished observations, with permission from the source. Avoid citing a “personal communication” unless it provides essential information not available from a public source, in which case the name of the person and date of communication should be cited in parentheses in the text. Authors are responsible for checking that none of the references cite retracted articles except in the context of referring to the retraction. Authors can identify retracted articles in MEDLINE by searching PubMed for “Retracted publication [pt]”, where the term “pt” in square brackets stands for publication type, or by going directly to the PubMed’s list of retracted publications (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term_retracted_publication_[pt]). References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. Identify references in text, tables, and legends by Arabic numerals in parentheses. References cited only in tables or figure legends should be numbered in accordance with the sequence established by the first identification in the text of the particular table or figure. The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the style used for MEDLINE (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals).

Style and Format

ABCR applies Vancouver referencing style. References should follow the standards summarized in the NLM’s International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals: Sample References (http://www.nlm.nih.gov//bsd/uniform_requirements.html) webpage and detailed in the NLM’s Citing Medicine, 2nd edition (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7256/).

Authors are responsible for verifying the accuracy of the references by using an electronic bibliographic source, such as PubMed, or printed original articles.

Examples of most often literature citing:

Articles in journals:

Halpern SD, Ubel PA, Caplan AL. Solid-organ transplantation in HIV-infected patients. N

Engl J Med. 2002;347:284-7.

List all authors when there are six or fewer. When there are more than six authors, list the first six followed by et al.

Spinhoven P, Elzinga BM, Hovens JG, Roelofs K, van Oppen P, Zitman FG, et al. Positive and negative life events and personality traits in predicting course of depression and anxiety. Acta Psychiatr Scand. 2011;124:462-73.

Article published electronically ahead of print version:

Cals JW, Kotz D. Effective writing and publishing scientific papers, part X: choice of journal. J Clin Epidemiol. 2013 Oct 31 [cited 2013 Nov 7]. [Epub ahead of print].

Book:

Murray PR, Rosenthal KS, Kobayashi GS, Pfaller MA. Medical microbiology. 4. ed. St.

Louis: Mosby; 2002.

In language other than English:

Gamulin S, Marušić M, Kovač Z. et al., eds. [Patofiziologija]. 5th ed. Zagreb: Medicinska naklada; 2002. (in Croatian)

Book (editors):

Bemmel JH van, Musen MA, ed. Handbook of medical informatics. Houten/Diegem:

Springer; 1997.

Book chapter:

Hasman A. Medical imaging. In: Bemmel JH van, Musen MA, ed. Handbook of medical

informatics.Houten/Diegem: Springer, 1997; pp. 127-46.

In language other than English:

Vrkić N. [Smjernice za laboratorijsku dijagnostiku akutnog koronarnog sindroma]. In: [Dijagnostika hitnih stanja]. Topić E, ed. Zagreb: Medicinska naklada; 2006. (in Croatian)

Organisation as an author:

International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals. N Eng J Med 1997;336:309-15.

Tables

Number tables consecutively in the order of their first citation in the text and supply a title for each. Titles in tables should be short but self-explanatory, containing information that allows readers to understand the table’s content without having to go back to the text. Be sure that each table is cited in the text. Give each column a short or an abbreviated heading. Authors should place explanatory matter in footnotes, not in the heading. Explain all nonstandard abbreviations in footnotes and use symbols to explain information if needed. Symbols may be alphabet letters or such symbols as *, †, ‡, §. Statistical measures such as standard deviation, standard error, confidence intervals, and interquartile ranges should be clearly identified. If data from a published or unpublished source are reproduced or adapted, the source must be acknowledged and permission obtained where required.

Illustrations and Figures

Figures should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first cited and must be cited in the manuscript. Digital figures should be suitable for publication and should remain legible after reduction. Letters, numbers, and symbols must be clear and consistent. Radiological images, clinical photographs, pathology images, and photomicrographs should be submitted as high-resolution files. Photomicrographs should include an internal scale marker, and the staining method should be identified in the legend. Before-and-after photographs should be produced under comparable conditions, including lighting, magnification, positioning, and image acquisition. Image enhancement must not obscure, remove, introduce, or misrepresent information. Any adjustment applied to an image should affect the entire image and should be described when relevant. Selective manipulation is not permitted. Identifiable patient information must be removed unless written consent for publication has been obtained. Figure legends should be provided on a separate manuscript page and numbered to correspond with the figures. All symbols, arrows, letters, abbreviations, and scale markers should be explained in the legend. Previously published figures must acknowledge the original source. Authors are responsible for obtaining written permission from the copyright holder when required. Preferred file formats are TIFF, JPEG, or other publication-quality formats accepted by the submission system. A minimum resolution of 300 dpi is recommended for color and grayscale images; line drawings may require a higher resolution.

Units of Measurement

Measurements of length, height, weight, and volume should be reported in metric units or their decimal multiples. Temperatures should be reported in degrees Celsius, and blood pressure in millimeters of mercury. Hematological and clinical chemistry measurements should be reported in SI units whenever appropriate. Conventional units may be added in parentheses when needed for clinical interpretation. Drug concentrations may be reported in SI or mass units, provided that the unit is stated clearly and used consistently.

Abbreviations and Symbols

Only standard abbreviations should be used. Nonstandard abbreviations should be avoided unless they are necessary and used repeatedly. Abbreviations should not normally appear in the manuscript title. At first mention, the term should be written in full followed by the abbreviation in parentheses, unless the abbreviation is a standard unit of measurement. All abbreviations used in tables and figures should be defined in the corresponding footnotes or legends.

Supplementary material

Material that is relevant to interpretation or reproducibility but cannot reasonably be included in the main manuscript may be submitted as supplementary material. Examples include extensive tables, additional analyses, study protocols, reporting checklists, questionnaires, analytic code, datasets, multimedia files, and detailed methodological information. Every supplementary file must be cited in the manuscript and clearly labelled, for example:

• Supplementary Table S1
• Supplementary Figure S1
• Supplementary Methods
• Supplementary File S1

Supplementary material is subject to editorial and peer review. Authors are responsible for its accuracy, formatting, copyright compliance, removal of identifying information, and protection of confidential participant data.