Manuscript Contents

Manuscript submissions should conform to the guidelines set forth in the “Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals (ICMJE Recommendations)”, available online at http://www.icmje.org/recommendations.

The manuscript contents must follow the specifications below. After submission, the Editorial Office will perform a preliminary technical check and, if these instructions are not adhered to, the Authors will be asked to make appropriate corrections before the manuscript is considered for review. The authors will be asked to refine until it fully adheres to the authors instructions.

Prepare your submission

Cover letter. Manuscripts must be accompanied by a cover letter. A corresponding Author should be designated and specified in the cover letter. All editorial communications and submission queries will be sent to this Author. Please read the Authorship Policy before submission and note that authorship and affiliation will not be changed after acceptance. Cover letters should specify concisely the significance of the paper, the novelty of the message, the relation to daily practice and the incremental value compared with the existing literature. The authors should briefly summarise the strengths of the article and why they feel it is relevant to EIJ and worthy of publication. Cover letters must include the following 4 ICMJE statements: 1) the paper is not under consideration elsewhere; 2) none of the paper’s contents have been published previously; 3) all authors have read and approved the manuscript; 4) the full disclosure of any potential conflicts of interest or that no such relationship exists. Exceptions must be explained. If there is no conflict of interest, this should also be stated in the cover letter. Submission submitted without a cover letter will be returned to the authors.

Title page. Include the full title (preferably no more than 15 words), authors’ full names (first name, middle initial, and surname) with qualifications (e.g., MD, PhD), List the departments and institutions to which the authors are affiliated, and indicate the specific affiliations if the work is generated from more than one institution (use superscript numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on, after each author’s name, before the degree(s)/qualification(s) and before the list of affiliations).
Please note that a maximum of 2 first authors and 1 corresponding author will be permitted.

Please also include a running title of no more than 7 words or 50 characters including spaces.

Conflict of interest statement - All authors of a paper must make a formal disclosure of any financial associations that might pose a conflict of interest in connection with the submitted article at the time of submission. The Corresponding Author should collect and upload an ICMJE form for each author and will be asked to upload them with the manuscript after the first round of revision, if applicable. The corresponding author is responsible for making sure that in the paper itself the "Conflict of interest statement" corresponds to the information provided on the individual ICMJE forms submitted by the authors. If none of the authors has a conflict of interest, please state this clearly. If one or more of the authors have declared a conflict of interest, the remaining authors must state clearly that they have no conflicts of interest to declare. Examples of possible conflicts are: consultancies, corporate appointment, stock ownership or other equity interest or patent-licensing arrangements. The manuscript will be sent back to the authors if the conflict of interest statement of each author is not indicated in the original submission. The manuscript will be sent back to the authors if one or more of the ICMJE forms are missing at the second round of review of the manuscript.

Address for correspondence - Under the heading “Address for correspondence”, give the full name and complete postal address of the author to whom communications, galley proofs and reprint requests should be sent. Also provide telephone number(s), an email address and a Twitter handle (if available) for the corresponding author.

Abstract. If you are submitting original Clinical or Translational Research articles, or Meta-Analyses, provide a structured abstract of no more than 250 words, presenting essential data in 5 paragraphs introduced by separate headings in the following order: Background, Aims, Methods, Results, and Conclusions. All data in the abstract must also appear in the manuscript text or tables. If you are submitting an Expert Consensus document, a State-of-the-Art review or a Trial Design paper, provide an unstructured abstract of no more than 250 words. An abstract is not required for Short Reports, Editorials, Viewpoints, Interventional Flashlights and Letters to the Editor.

Keywords. Please provide 3 to 6 keywords for indexing purposes. These keywords must be an exact match to those you have entered in editorial manager.

Abbreviations and acronyms. Please provide a list of selected abbreviations that recur at least 5 times in the text along with their definitions. Please define in the text itself each abbreviation and/or acronym once at their first appearance in the text.

Main Text. All text from the Introduction to the end of the manuscript should be double-spaced. Page numbering should start with the Title page. The text for original Clinical Research, Translational Research, Meta-Analyses and Short Reports should be structured as Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions. Use of headings and subheadings (e.g., patient population, study endpoints, statistical analysis, limitations, etc.) is encouraged. Every reference, figure, and table should be numbered in the text according to order of mention.

Acknowledgements. This section is intended to acknowledge briefly the contributions of individuals who do not qualify for Authorship but provided significant help, e.g., in the conduct of the study or the writing of the article.

Impact on daily practice. This section is required only for submission of original Clinical Articles, Translational Research articles and Meta-analyses. In a short paragraph of no more than three short sentences (i.e., no more than 125 words or 900 characters including spaces), the Authors are asked to explain the clinical significance or translation of their article, underlining the take-home message that they believe the reader should retain.

References. References in the main body of the article/text must be cited using superscript Arabic numerals and numbered consecutively in the order in which they are cited in the text. References should be placed after and not before sentence punctuation. The reference list should be typed double-spaced on pages separate from the text. Do not cite personal communications, abstracts, oral presentations, manuscripts in preparation, or other unpublished data in the references; however, these may be included in the text in parentheses.

Should the authors choose to cite guidelines, please ensure that they are the most up-to-date versions.

References listed at the end of the article/text must appear in the following format:

Figure legends. Figure legends should be typed double-spaced on pages separate from the text. The Figures must correspond with the order in which they are mentioned in the text. A Figure legend is made of the Figure title (in bold) and the subsequent description or explanation. If the Figure is composed of panels, each panel should be described in the legend. All abbreviations used in the Figure should be identified either after their first mention in the legend or in alphabetical order at the end of each legend. All symbols used must be explained. If previously published figures are used, written permission from the original publisher is required. Ensure that all figures are labelled and called for correctly, i.e. Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.

Tables. Tables should be included at the end of the main manuscript. Do not use images for tables (for example: .jpeg format, screenshots and other image formats). Explanatory notes below the Table are encouraged. Tables must be cited in numerical order in the text. Tables should be self-explanatory, and the data presented in them should not be duplicated in the text or figures. All abbreviations used within the tables must be listed in alphabetical order in a footnote appearing beneath the Table. Tables must be numbered using Arabic numerals both within the text and in the accompanying captions. Label Tables carefully when submitting. If previously published Tables are used, written permission from the original publisher is required. Ensure that all tables are labelled and called for correctly, i.e., Table 1, Table 2, etc.
Please use both column and row dividers when preparing tables.

Figures, line drawings and graphs. The number of submitted figures should be appropriate to avoid redundancy and promote clarity. There is no fee for the publication of colour figures. Lettering should be of sufficient size to be legible after reduction for publication (optimal size 12 points). Decimals, lines, and other details must be strong enough for reproduction. The size of each image must preferably be a minimum of 8 cm x 8 cm. This size is equivalent to one column width of printed text. Label Figures carefully when submitting. Figures must be numbered using Arabic numerals. For Figures in panel format please use the following notation: Figure 1A, Figure 1B, Figure 1C, etc., for the different panels. All abbreviations used must be listed in alphabetical order in a footnote under the Figure. All Figures must be referred to and cited in numerical order in the text. If one panel of a Figure is referred to, then all panels of that Figure must be referred to, and appear in alphabetical order in the text. If this is not appropriate, simply refer to the Figure number and omit mention of the panels. It is the author’s responsibility to obtain permission from the copyright holders: copyright applies to photographs and original artwork for diagrams and it is courteous to seek permission for extensive use of factual matter in a Table or box. Journals, not authors, usually retain copyright for articles.

During the original submission figures should be uploaded as part of the main manuscript after the text and tables.

Before acceptance, authors will be requested to upload the figures as editable source files in either .pptx or .eps...

Please ensure that the figures and the accompanying text are editable and high resolution..

Central Illustration. A good central illustration effectively captures attention, conveys the main message of your article, and engages the viewer. It stands out as the key illustration of your paper. Importantly, a central illustration is not a visual/graphical abstract, as the purpose is not to summarize the entire article but rather to highlight the key result (for more details please click here).

Supplementary material. Authors are encouraged to enhance their manuscript with media files, additional images, web-based calculators, and other material that does not fit into the usual format of an article but that helps to communicate results and/or educate the reader. The Editors actively encourage the submission of moving images relating to the online publication. Please use AVI, MP4 or WMV format for moving images. We recommend a maximum of eight (8) moving images. For each moving image the maximum size is 1 MB and each should be accompanied by a descriptive legend placed in the supplementary manuscript, under the subtitle “Supplementary data”. Please contact the Editorial Office at [email protected] for moving image submission assistance. The Editorial Office kindly asks that the authors attempt to upload supplementary material in a condensed format.

References are not permitted in Supplementary material.

Should authors wish to include a supplementary document we ask that it is formatted in the following order:
Supplementary Main text
Supplementary Tables
Supplementary Figure legends
Supplementary Figures

All supplementary tables should be labelled Supplementary Table 1 etc. and all Supplementary Figures should be labelled Supplementary Figure 1 etc. These figures and tables should be called for in chronological order in the main manuscript.

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