Submissions

Submission Preparation Checklist

• Before final submission, the corresponding author must confirm that the manuscript is original, has not been submitted simultaneously to another journal, has been approved by all listed authors, and includes all applicable ethics, consent, funding, conflict-of-interest, authorship, data-availability, prior-dissemination, and AI-use declarations. Any relevant related manuscript or prior dissemination must be disclosed.
• The main manuscript is a Word file (.docx), blinded: no author names, affiliations, identifying acknowledgements or file metadata.
• The blinded main manuscript is uploaded as “Main Manuscript — Blinded”; a separate file of type “Title Page” is uploaded with all author details, funding, conflicts of interest, contributions, ethics approval, data availability and AI disclosure.
• The manuscript follows the word, abstract, figure, table and reference limits for its article type.
• Ethics approval and participant consent are reported where applicable; trial registration is included for clinical trials.
• The completed reporting checklist for the study design is uploaded as a separate file of type “Reporting Checklist” (CONSORT, STROBE, PRISMA, PRISMA-ScR, STARD, CARE, PROCESS for surgical case series, ORION for hospital infection outbreaks, SRQR/COREQ, SQUIRE, CHEERS, ARRIVE, TRIPOD or SPIRIT; see Reporting Guidelines). Editorials, letters, perspectives and narrative reviews do not need one.
• A cover letter is optional. If you include one, upload it as a separate file of type “Cover Letter”, giving the article type, the manuscript’s relevance and any requests for exceptions to standard limits (these can otherwise go in the comments for the editor). The Title Page and any Cover Letter stay with the editorial office and are not sent to reviewers.
• References follow Vancouver (NLM) style.