Instructions to authors

NOWOTWORY Journal of Oncology publishes papers which cover all aspects of oncology but concentrates on clinical studies, both research orientated and treatment orientated, rather than on laboratory studies. Contributions are also welcomed from the fields of epidemiology, tumor pathology, radiobiology and radiation physics.

All submitted manuscripts will be peer reviewed and the authors will be required to state that their paper has not been previously published or has been accepted for publication elsewhere, and has not simultaneously been submitted to another journal. A covering letter must accompany each submitted manuscript and this letter must be signed by all authors and not only by the first author. In this letter any financial conflicts of interest must be specified. In addition, all sources of financial support for the study must be described. It is the responsibility of the main author of the paper to obtain written copyright permission for any material, text or illustrations, for which the copyright is owned by another person or persons or by an organisation or by another journal.

Technical requirements for manuscripts should follow the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals prepared by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (the Vancouver style) - see N Eng J Med 1997; 336: 309-315 or Nowotwory 2000; 50: 64-68.

Ethics. Any papers submitted which have required approval by local Ethics Committee, whether this be with regard to cancer patients within randomised or non-randomised clinical trials/studies or with regard to animal experimentation, should contain a statement to the effect that such approval has been obtained. In addition, written consent should be obtained for publication of any data or photograph, that might identify an individual patient. All procedures shoud be in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration

Text. Original contributions must be submitted in English. The body of the text must conform to acceptable English usage and syntax. The contents must be clear, accurate, coherent and logical. The text should be typed on one side of the paper with double spacing and substantial margins. Submit the original and two copies of the manuscript (including the original and two copies of all tables and all illustrations). A diskette, using a standard software, should only be submitted upon acceptance of the paper and it should contain all final revisions.

Title page. Should contain the title, the names of all authors, the name of institution to which the article should be attributed, the name, postal and e-mail address of the corresponding author. Authorship requires substantial contributions to the development of the concept of the paper, the analysis and interpretation of data and the drafting and revision of manuscript submissions. Three to five key words should be supplied, using terms from the medical subject headings (MeSH) list of Index Medicus.

An abstract not exceeding 150 words should be presented on a separate sheet. Both the main text of the original paper and the abstract should be divided into the following sections: Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions. Abbreviations which are not generally accepted, should be explained when first used in the text. Footnotes should be avoided wherever possible and no paper should contain more than two footnotes.

Statistics. Statistical methods must be identified and described in sufficient detail for a knowledgeable reader to be able to reproduce the statistical analysis when provided with access to the raw data. When appropriate, statistical levels of significance should be quoted, e.g. p < 0.05.

Tables. Each table should be typed double spaced on a separate sheet and must have a fully explanatory title. All tables should be numbered in order of appearance and referred to by number in the text. Place explanatory matter in notes beneath the table, not in the table legend. Tables must ne numbered using Roman numerals.

Illustrations. They should be numbered consecutively and be cited in the text. Descriptive legends for the figures should be typed in a separate list. Photographs should be glossy prints. Computer-drawn figures can be accepted only if they are of good quality. The name of the first author, figure number and an arrow indicating orientation should be placed on the back of each illustration. If authors wish to have their illustrations published in color, they must communicate that desire when the manuscript is submitted. The cost of color illustrations is charged to the authors. Figures can be supplied electronically so long as they are in a standard format, e.g. tiff files, but three hardcopies of each illustration are required even if electronic files are also supplied. The illustrations will not be returned to the authors after publication unless this has been specifically requested.

References. References must be cited as numerals in brackets in order in which they are first mentioned in the text. The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the style used in Index Medicus. List all the authors if a paper has three or fewer authors. For more than three authors list only the first three authors followed by et al. Follow the correct style of citing references in biomedical publications prepared by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors - see N Eng J Med 1997; 336: 309-315 or Nowotwory 1997; 47: 403-406. Note the following examples:

Journal articles: Parkin D, Clayton P, Black RF et al. Childhood leukaemia in Europe after Chernobyl. Br J Cancer 1996; 73: 1006-12.

Chapter in a book: Philips SJ, Whisnant JP. Hypertension and stroke. In: Laragh JH, Brenner BM, (eds.) Hypertension: pathophysiology diagnosis and management. Ed. 2. New York: Raven Press;1995, p. 465-78.

Proceedings: Bengtsson S, Solheim Bo. Enforcement of data protection, privacy and security in medical informatics. In: Lun KC, Degoulet P, Piemme TE, Rienhoff O, (eds.). MEDINFO 92. Proceedings of the 7th World Congress on Medical Informatics; 6-10 Sept.1992; Geneva, Switzerland. Amsterdam: North-Holland;1992, p.1561-5.