2 Preparation of the manuscript
The reporting guidelines for randomized controlled trials refer to the CONSORT flow diagram and checklist (http://www.consort-statement.org). The reporting guidelines for systematic reviews/meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials refer to the PRISMA flow diagram and checklist (http://www.prisma-statement.org). The commonly used reporting standards in this journal can be downloaded in the download center. The reporting guidelines for other types of studies can be found on the EQUATOR website (equator-network.org).
Download center
CONSORT 2010 Statement (randomised trials)
CONSORT-AI extension (randomised trials involving AI)
PRISMA statement (systematic reviews)
STROBE (observational studies)
STARD checklist (diagnostic accuracy studies)
STROCSS 2024 (cohort, cross-sectional, and case-control studies in surgery)
CARE Checklist (case reports)
ARRIVE Guidelines (animal researches)
AGREE Reporting Checklist (clinical practice guidelines)
2 Preparation of the manuscript
Title
The title of the paper should be concise, eye-catching, and reflective of the main theme and research design. The Chinese title should ideally be within 20 characters. All types of articles are required to have both Chinese and English titles. It is advisable to avoid using non-publicly known abbreviations, characters, codes, as well as structural formulas in the title.
Authors
The order of authors in each paper should be determined at the time of submission and should not be changed during the typesetting process. For Chinese authors, their names are written in Pinyin with the family name first, followed by the given name, separated by a space. The entire alphabet of the family name is capitalized, and compound surnames should be written continuously; the first letter of the given name is capitalized, and neither the family name nor the given name should be abbreviated. The naming conventions for foreign authors follow international practices. Please indicate the affiliation of all authors, including the full name of the institution, the name of the province or city, and the postal code; the province or city name and postal code should be enclosed in parentheses. The author's affiliation should be placed below the author's name. Authors from different institutions should be marked with different Arabic numerals in the upper right corner of their names, and the same number as the author's name sequence should be added before their institution's name.
Abstract
The Chinese abstract is generally controlled to be around 250 words, while the English abstract is about 400 content words, and should be relatively consistent with the Chinese abstract. Please include the title of the paper, author's institution, and include postal code in the English abstract. The names of authors and provinces/cities should be written in Pinyin, and all authors' names should be listed. All types of articles need to provide both Chinese and English abstracts. Research papers are required to write structured abstracts. The abstract should be marked with【Abstract】as an indicator.
Keywords
All articles should require the annotation of Chinese keywords, and English keywords should also be provided. Generally, each article can select 3 to 8 keywords. The keywords are marked with【Keywords】. Please try to use words listed in the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) of the latest edition of Index Medicus edited by the National Library of Medicine in the United States as much as possible. The first letter of the first English keyword should be capitalized, and each word should be separated by a semicolon.
Main body of the article
The manuscript should be scientific, innovative, and logical, with the text being concise and clear. The main body of a research paper includes four parts: introduction, materials and methods, results, and discussion.
References
The references should preferably be selected from publications within the last 5 years, relevant to the submitted content, and have been personally read by the authors. It is required to verify the original texts to ensure accuracy. The references are recorded using a sequential coding system according to the national standard GB 7714-87, and are indicated with Arabic numerals enclosed in square brackets in the order they appear in the main text. It is best to avoid using abstracts as references. Unpublished observational data, personal correspondence, internal documents, conference materials, etc., are generally not considered as references. All authors listed in the references should be included if there are fewer than three; for more than three, only the first three should be listed, followed by "et al." The abbreviations of foreign journals should follow the format of "Index Medicus" edited by the National Library of Medicine in the United States. Punctuation in the references should be in English mode, with a space after each symbol. Authors must check that the references match their original sources accurately. The references should be arranged in the order of their citation (indicated by Arabic numerals) at the end of the paper.
Book: Wang Zengwei, Liu Weiyong, Zhang Baoren, Editors-in-Chief. Complete Surgery Collection·Cardiovascular Surgery Volume. 2nd Edition. Beijing: People's Military Medical Publisher, 1996. 116-126.
Journal article: Choi BM, Hwang CS, Yoon YS, et al. Novel temperature-responsive hydrogel injected to the incision site for postoperative pain relief in laparoscopic abdominal surgery: A single-blind, randomized, pivotal clinical trial. SurgEndosc, 2022, 36(8): 5794-5802.
Funding
Articles funded by grants should be marked with "Foundation item:", indicating the names and numbers of the fund project. The name of the fund project should be filled out according to the official name stipulated by relevant national departments, and multiple fund projects should be listed in sequence, separated by semicolons.
Units of measurement and symbols
The unit of measurement should be based on the "Legal Measurement Units of the People's Republic of China" issued by the State Council in 1984 (see "Application of Legal Measurement Units in Medicine" 3rd Edition, People's Military Medical Publisher, 2004). The statistical symbols are based on GB 3358-82 "Statistical Terminology and Symbols", and are all italicized.
Figures and tables
Each manuscript should not exceed 5 figures, and the figures are consecutively coded in the order they appear in the text. Each figure should be preceded by a Chinese figure (table) title. Illustrations should be drawn or photographed by professionals, with each image placed on a separate page. To ensure the quality of the printing of the figures in the paper, authors are requested to provide editable file format images when submitting their manuscripts. The specific requirements are as follows: (1) Photographic images must be clear and saved in *.jpg format, and no text or symbols should be marked on the plates for printing, but they should be clearly indicated in the schematic diagrams inserted into Word documents; (2) Hand-drawn or scanned images must have a resolution of 300 dpi; (3) When generating statistical charts in statistical software, please save them directly in *.emf or *.wmf format; if statistical charts are generated in Excel, please save them in *.xls format and provide the original data. Plates for printing should be uploaded to the online system as an attachment along with the submitted manuscript. Tables should be made in a formal manner with cells in Word format.
Statistical analysis
Please provide the name and version of the statistical software, type of data and its corresponding statistical method, α level of test, P value, statistic values, effect size, and 95%CI (for example: t, χ2, F, mean difference, median difference, relative risk, odds ratio, etc.).
Submission
Since 2012, this journal has only accepted submissions through the online submission system. Please visit our journal website (https://english.tcsurg.org) and submit your manuscript through the "Submission and Review System" interface. If you are a new user, please register first on the "Author Registration" interface. After submitting, authors can check the status of their manuscripts through the "Submission and Review System".
Notes for submission:
(1) Authors should declare that their manuscript does not infringe any copyrights, is not submitted to multiple journals, does not involve confidentiality, does not have authorship disputes, and has not been published repeatedly or in other academic misconduct;
(2) Authors must be responsible for the authenticity of their articles;
(3) Before submitting, authors must carefully review the figures, tables, and data in their manuscripts to ensure they are completely consistent with the descriptions in the text;
(4) When submitting, authors should also inform the editorial department that all content of the manuscript, including abstracts, figures, tables, etc., has not been published in any other open publications. According to the "Copyright Law" and considering the specific situation of our journal, if an author does not receive a response from our journal within 6 months after receiving our acknowledgement, it means that the manuscript is still under review. If an author wishes to submit to another journal, please contact us in advance;
(5) Authors are responsible for all manuscripts. The editorial department of our journal has the right to make textual modifications and deletions to the manuscripts. Any modifications that affect the original meaning will be proposed to the authors for consideration. For manuscripts that are not published, our journal will provide feedback via email without returning the original manuscript.
Ethics approval
Clinical research manuscripts must indicate whether they have been approved by the Medical Ethics Committee, and provide the name and approval number of the approving institution as well as whether patients have signed informed consent forms. If it is a clinical trial, it is recommended to register on the World Health Organization Clinical Trials Registry Platform (WHO ICTRP, http://www.who.int/ictrp/en) or an ICMJE-accredited clinical trials registration agency, such as the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (http://www.chictr.org), and please provide the clinical trial registration number. Animal experimental research must state whether it has been approved by the Animal Ethics Committee, and provide the name and approval number of the approving institution as well as the license number for the use of experimental animals. Retrospective studies exempt from ethical review should provide proof of institutional ethical review exemption. When submitting, be sure to provide ethical approval documents for verification.
Informed consent
According to the "Ethical Review Method for Biomedical Research Involving Humans", researchers conducting clinical research should obtain voluntary informed consent signed by the subjects; if the subject cannot express consent in writing, the project researcher should obtain their oral informed consent and submit process records and supporting materials. The following situations can be exempted from signing informed consent after review and approval by the ethics committee: (1) Using human materials or data with identifiable information for research, and the subject cannot be found anymore, and the research project does not involve personal privacy and commercial interests; (2) Biological sample donors have already signed informed consent forms, agreeing that the donated samples and related information can be used for all medical research.
(1) Once a manuscript is accepted for publication, the author transfers the copyright of the manuscript to the Chinese Journal of Clinical Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. This includes but is not limited to digital reproduction rights, distribution rights, compilation rights, translation rights, information network transmission rights, and the right to grant permission for domestic and foreign literature retrieval systems or databases to include the work.
(2) After the publication of the paper, the author retains the right to be credited, maintain the integrity of the work, and make modifications; the first author represents the copyright holder. After the article is published, the author may use the article under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.
(3) Manuscripts that have passed the final review by the editor will first be uploaded to the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) digital publishing platform (www.cnki.net) for online release and published on our journal's website (https://english.tcsurg.org). If the author does not agree to have their manuscript distributed electronically, they must attach a statement in their submission; otherwise, it is considered consent to electronic publication processing.
The journal is a non-profit and non-independent legal entity, and an article publication fee is charged for each article.
After the acceptance of a manuscript, the author(s) will be charged article publication fees: 2,500 CNY per article for case reports, and 4,000 CNY per article for other types of articles.
Once the article is published, the author can obtain three copies of the current issue's print sample free of charge. Publishing fees or waiver status should not influence editorial decision making.