Guidelines to Authors

Submission of Manuscripts
Manuscripts should be submitted online at http://ees.elsevier.com/yclon and the instructions on this site should be closely followed. For optimal use of the site, authors need an up-to-date web browser (Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator) and Adobe Acrobat Reader (version 6 or later) which is available free at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2html.

Authors unable to submit online should contact the Editorial Office: Tel: +44(0) 01923 844568; Fax: +44(0) 01923844167; email: elsie.arjune@nhs.net.

Papers must be submitted exclusively to the Journal on the understanding that they have not been and will not be published elsewhere. The main author is responsible for ensuring that the article has been seen and approved by all the other authors. It is the authors' responsibility to obtain and supply written permission for the reproduction of any tables, illustrations, or quotations of more than 25 words that have been published elsewhere. Authors must describe any direct or indirect financial interest they have in the subject matter of a submitted manuscript. Papers accepted by the Journal become the copyright of the Royal College of Radiologists. Authors should notify the Editorial Office if there is any reason (e.g. Crown copyright or other restrictions) why they may not be able to transfer copyright to the Royal College of Radiologists. This Journal supports the COPE Guidelines for publication in Medical Research. Refer to Clinical Oncology 2000;12:206-212.

Language
Manuscripts should be written in English. Authors whose native language is not English are strongly advised to have their manuscripts checked by an English-speaking colleague prior to submission. Alternatively, you may contact one of the Elsevier recommended language Editing Services: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authors.authors/languagepolishing for any queries, or further assistance please contact support@elsevier.com.

Covering letter
Each manuscript should be accompanied by a covering letter from the author, addressed to the Editor, highlighting the strengths of the paper. Authors may also nominate up to three reviewers, who they think may be appropriate.

Title Page
This should carry the complete title of the manuscript, Initial(s) and surname(s) of all authors with the affiliation and address of each author cross-referenced to the appropriate name. A separate name and address for correspondence should be given including telephone, fax, and email addresses. The word count of the text, and the number of tables and figures should also be included on this page.

Abstract
The text of Original Articles and Overview Articles should be preceded by an Abstract of no more than 300 words, followed by up to 6 Keywords placed in alphabetical order. For Original Articles the abstract should be structured in Aims; Materials and Methods; Results; Conclusion. For Overview Articles an unstructured abstract is acceptable, and must be prefaced by a statement detailing the search strategies used and sources of information.

Text
The Text of each manuscript should contain an Introduction stating the purpose of the study, followed by Materials and Methods describing clearly the number of selection of the subjects studied (patients or experimental animals, including controls), Results presented in a logical sequence with tables where appropriate, Discussion emphasising the new and important aspects of the study and Conclusions that follow from them. These sections must be followed by References numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned. Any Acknowledgements must be stated after the References. Pages must be numbered consecutively.

Tables
Tables should be typed on separate sheets and numbered consecutively in the text.. No more than 4 tables will be accepted.

Illustrations
Original line drawings and graphs (not photocopies) should be submitted in a form suitable for immediate reproduction. Any halftone illustrations (photographs) must be of top quality to ensure good and accurate reproduction, with any lettering and detail large enough to ensure reduction to a minimum of 78 mm width. Each Illustration should be numbered at the top of the page and carry a caption. Clinical photographs and other material should be anonymous and a statement confirming patient consent to publication must be included with the manuscript. No more than 4 illustrations will be accepted, and a limited number of colour illustrations may be included.

References
The accuracy of the references is the author's responsibility. References should be numbered consecutively as they appear in the text, using Arabic numerals in square brackets. "Unpublished observations" and "personal communications" must not be included in the reference list. References can only be designated "in press" if the article has been accepted for publication. Titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the style of Index Medicus. When seven or more authors are listed, only the first three names should be cited. At the end of the article, references should be listed in numerical order, following the Vancouver style of the examples below:
Standard Journal Article: Aviles A, Alatriste S, Talevera A, et al. Alternating combination chemotherapy and interferon improves survival in poor prognosis multiple myeloma. Clin Oncol 1995;7:97-101.
Book: Chamberlain J, Moss S (editors). Evaluation of cancer screening. London, Springer, 1995.
Chapter in a book: Tannock IF. Cell kinetics and cancer chemotherapy. In:Hellman K, Carter SK, editors. Fundamentals of cancer chemotherapy. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987:7-19.
The limit to the number of references to be included in a manuscript is left to the discretion of the authors.

Abbreviations
Abbreviations should be used only where appropriate, and the full term should be given first. Non-proprietary (generic) names of products should be used. If a brand name of a drug is used, the British or International non-proprietary (approved) name should be given. The source of any new or experimental preparation should also be given.

Units/Symbols
Scientific measurements should be given in SI units. For guidance and conversion factors, see SI for the Health Professions (WHO, 1977).

Statistical Methods
Statistical Methods should be defined in the Methods section of the paper, and any not in common use should be either described in detail or supported by references. Refer to Clinical Oncology 2000;12:202-205.

Manuscript Length
Original Articles and Overview Articles must keep to a strict word limit of 3,500 words, excluding References and Title Page. Short Reports must be limited to 1,500 words. Figures and Tables must be limited to 4 each.

Editorials
Editorials must be no more than 1,500 words in length and relate to articles published in the Journal, or to issues of relevance for the readership. Editorials are normally solicited by the Editor and Assistant Editor, and authors should discuss other proposals with the Editor prior to submission.

Meetings' Abstracts
Proposals for submitting Meetings' Abstracts should be addressed to the Editor before submission of the Abstracts. Meetings' Abstracts may be considered for publication as part of our page budget within an Issue of the Journal, or as a separate Abstracts Book of the Journal for which the organisers will be charged. They should be structured to include clear sections describing the aim of the project, method used, results and conclusions, and should contain adequate data to assess the results and interpret the conclusions. It is not sufficient to state in the results' section that "data will be presented" or similar phrasing, and descriptive accounts of work in progress will not be considered for publication. All the Meetings' abstracts must be submitted in a single File with each Abstract starting on a separate page. A title page must be provided, listing the full name of the meeting, date and venue at which the Abstracts were presented. If the Abstracts are grouped together under specific topics, a content page must be provided, listing the topics, the title of the abstracts, the name of the authors, and the abstract number, in the order in which they are to appear in the Journal. If a full contents page, listing - e.g. the dates of the various sessions, session number, title of session, title of abstract, authors' name, abstract number - is required, this must be provided at the same time as the abstracts. The standard format for an Abstract is, Title of Abstract, Authors' names (initials followed by surname - no title), Institute/Hospital, Purpose, Methods, Results, Conclusion.

Correspondence to the Editor
Letters will be published if they are deemed of sufficient interest and relevance. Priority will be given to letters relating to articles previously published in the Journal, but also including other comment on matters of interest to oncologists. Letters should be no longer than 300 words.

Authorship
All authors should have made substantial contributions to all of the following: (1) the conception and design of the study, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, (3) final approval of the version to be submitted.

Acknowledgements
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship as defined above should be listed in an acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, writing assistance, or a department chair who provided only general support. Authors should disclose whether they had any writing assistance and identify the entity that paid for this assistance.

Conflict of interest
At the end of the text, under a subheading "Conflict of interest statement" all authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organisations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding.

Role of the funding source
All sources of funding should be declared as an acknowledgement at the end of the text. Authors should declare the role of study sponsors, if any, in the study design, in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; and in the decision to submit the manuscript for publication. If the study sponsors had no such involvement, the authors should so state.

Randomised controlled trials
All randomised controlled trials submitted for publication in Clinical Oncology should include a completed Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) flow chart. Please refer to the CONSORT statement website at http://www.consort-statement.org for more information. Clinical Oncology has adopted the proposal from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) which require, as a condition of consideration for publication of clinical trials, registration in a public trials registry. Trials must register at or before the onset of patient enrolment. The clinical trial registration number should be included at the end of the abstract of the article. For this purpose, a clinical trial is defined as any research project that prospectively assigns human subjects to intervention or comparison groups to study the cause-and-effect relationship between a medical intervention and a health outcome. Studies designed for other purposes, such as to study pharmacokinetics or major toxicity (e.g. phase I trials) would be exempt. Further information can be found at www.icmje.org.

Ethics
Work on human beings that is submitted to Clinical Oncology should comply with the principles laid down in the Declaration of Helsinki; Recommendations guiding physicians in biomedical research involving human subjects. Adopted by the 18th World Medical Assembly, Helsinki, Finland, June 1964, amended by the 29th World Medical Assembly, Tokyo, Japan, October 1975, the 35th World Medical Assembly, Venice, Italy, October 1983, and the 41st World Medical Assembly, Hong Kong, September 1989. The manuscript should contain a statement that the work has been approved by the appropriate ethical committees related to the institution(s) in which it was performed and that subjects gave informed consent to the work. Studies involving experiments with animals must state that their care was in accordance with institution guidelines. Patients' and volunteers' names, initials, and hospital numbers should not be used.

Patient Consent
Studies on patients or volunteers require ethics committee approval and informed consent which should be documented in your paper.

Patients have a right to privacy. Therefore identifying information, including patients¿ images, names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be included in videos, recordings, written descriptions, photographs, and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and you have obtained written informed consent for publication in print and electronic form from the patient (or parent, guardian or next of kin where applicable). If such consent is made subject to any conditions, Elsevier must be made aware of all such conditions. Written consents must be provided to Elsevier on request.

Even where consent has been given, identifying details should be omitted if they are not essential. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic pedigrees, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort scientific meaning and editors should so note.

If such consent has not been obtained, personal details of patients included in any part of the paper and in any supplementary materials (including all illustrations and videos) must be removed before submission

Off-Prints
The corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article. The PDF file is a watermarked version of the published article and includes a cover sheet with the journal cover image and a disclaimer outlining the terms and conditions of use.

Changes to authorship
This policy concerns the addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names in the authorship of accepted manuscripts:

Before the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Requests to add or remove an author, or to rearrange the author names, must be sent to the Journal Manager from the corresponding author of the accepted manuscript and must include: (a) the reason the name should be added or removed, or the author names rearranged and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, fax, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed. Requests that are not sent by the corresponding author will be forwarded by the Journal Manager to the corresponding author, who must follow the procedure as described above. Note that: (1) Journal Managers will inform the Journal Editors of any such requests and (2) publication of the accepted manuscript in an online issue is suspended until authorship has been agreed.

After the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Any requests to add, delete, or rearrange author names in an article published in an online issue will follow the same policies as noted above and result in a corrigendum.

Digital Object Identifier
The digital object identifier (DOI) may be used to cite and link to electronic documents. The DOI consists of a unique alpha-numeric character string which is assigned to a document by the publisher upon the initial electronic publication. The assigned DOI never changes. Therefore, it is an ideal medium for citing a document, particularly 'Articles in press' because they have not yet received their full bibliographic information. The correct format for citing a DOI is shown as follows (example taken from a document in the journal Physics Letters B): doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2003.10.071. When you use the DOI to create URL hyperlinks to documents on the web, they are guaranteed never to change.

Funding body agreements and policies
Elsevier has established agreements and developed policies to allow authors whose articles appear in journals published by Elsevier, to comply with potential manuscript archiving requirements as specified as conditions of their grant awards. To learn more about existing agreements and policies please visit http://www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies

Author Enquiries
For enquiries relating to the submission of articles (including electronic submission where available) please visit this journal's homepage at http://www.elsevier.com/locate/clon. You can track accepted articles at http://www.elsevier.com/trackarticle and set up e-mail alerts to inform you of when an article's status has changed, as well as copyright information, frequently asked questions and more.
Contact details for questions arising after acceptance of an article, especially those relating to proofs, are provided after registration of an article for publication.

Advertising
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