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Instructions For Authors > FOR CONTRIBUTORS > Instructions For Authors



Last revised December 1, 2023

Table of contents

The Korean Journal of Clinical Oncology (Korean J Clin Oncol, KJCO) is an official publication of the Korean Society of Surgical Oncology. KJCO serves its readers as the single most credible, authoritative resource for disseminating significant clinical oncology research. Its scope comprised the followings: gastrointestinal, breast, head and neck cancer and soft tissue tumor including other organs tumors; molecular oncology; cancer prevention; clinical trial for chemotherapy; supportive care and quality of life issues. Its publication types include original articles, reviews, case reports, correspondences, and editorials. The journal is published biannually (30th June, 31st December) and distributed to members of the Korean Society of Surgical Oncology, medical school, libraries and related institutes to pursue the academic advancement in clinical oncology and to promote an active communication between the members and international societies of clinical oncology. Eventually, the Journal aims to cure of cancer and improvement of public health.
Manuscripts for submission to KJCO should be prepared according to the following instructions. For issues not addressed in these instructions, the author is referred to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) “Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals” (http://www.icmje.org).

COPYRIGHTS AND CREATIVE COMMONS ATTRIBUTION LICENSE

A submitted manuscript, when published, will become the property of the journal. Copyrights of all published materials are owned by the Korean Society of Surgical Oncology. The Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License available from: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ is also in effect.

RESEARCH AND PUBLICATION ETHICS

The journal adheres to the ethical guidelines for research and publication described in the Guidelines on Good Publication (http://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines) and the ICMJE Guidelines (http://www.icmje.org).

Authorship and Author’s Responsibility
Authorship credit should be based on 1) substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; 2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and 3) final approval of the version to be published; and 4) agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. Authors should meet these four conditions. After the initial submission of a manuscript, any changes whatsoever in authorship (adding author(s), deleting author(s), or re-arranging the order of authors) must be explained by a letter to the editor from the authors concerned. This letter must be signed by all authors on the paper. Copyright assignment must be completed by every author.
The corresponding author takes primary responsibility for communication with the journal during the manuscript submission, peer review, and publication process, and typically ensures that all the journal’s administrative requirements, such as providing details of authorship, ethics committee approval, clinical trial registration documentation, and gathering conflict of interest forms and statements, are properly completed, although these duties may be delegated to one or more coauthors. The corresponding author should be available throughout the submission and peer review process to respond to editorial queries in a timely manner, and should be available to respond to critiques of the work and cooperate with any requests from the journal for data or additional information or questions about the paper even after publication. KJCO does not allow multiple corresponding authors for one article. Only one author should correspond with the editorial office and readers for one article. KJCO does accept notice of equal contribution for the first author when the study was clearly performed by co-first authors. There is no limitation on the number of authors.
Originality, Plagiarism, and Duplicate Publication
Submitted manuscripts must not have been previously published or be under consideration for publication elsewhere. No part of the accepted manuscript should be duplicated in any other scientific journal without the permission of the Editorial Board. Submitted manuscripts are screened for possible plagiarism or duplicate publication by CrossCheck upon arrival. If plagiarism or duplicate publication related to the papers of this journal is detected, the manuscripts may be rejected, the authors will be announced in the journal, and their institutions will be informed. There will also be penalties for the authors.
A letter of permission is required for any and all material that has been published previously. It is the responsibility of the author to request permission from the publisher for any material that is being reproduced. This requirement applies to text, figures, and tables published by any of the authors themselves or used from another source, unless it is in the public domain.
Secondary Publication
It is possible to republish manuscripts if the manuscripts satisfy the conditions of secondary publication of the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals.
Conflict of Interest Statement
The corresponding author must inform the editor of any potential conflicts of interest that could influence the authors’ interpretation of the data. Examples of potential conflicts of interest are financial support from or connections to pharmaceutical companies, political pressure from interest groups, and academically related issues. In particular, all sources of funding applicable to the study should be explicitly stated.
Registration of Clinical Trial Research
It is recommended that any research that deals with a clinical trial be registered with a primary national clinical trial registration site, such as http://cris.nih.go.kr/, or other sites accredited by the WHO as listed at http://www.who.int/ictrp/en/.
Statement of Informed Consent and IRB Approval
Copies of written informed consent and Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval for clinical research should be kept. If necessary, the editor or reviewers may request copies of these documents to resolve questions about IRB approval and study conduct. In addition, for studies conducted with human subjects, the method by which informed consent was obtained from the participants also needs to be stated in the Methods section.
Statement of Human and Animal Rights
All human and animal investigations must be conducted according to the principles expressed in the WMA Declaration of Helsinki: Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects (https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki-ethical-principles-for-medical-research-involving-human-subjects/).
Process for Managing Research and Publication Misconduct
When the journal faces suspected cases of research and publication misconduct such as redundant (duplicate) publication, plagiarism, fraudulent or fabricated data, changes in authorship, an undisclosed conflict of interest, ethical problems with a submitted manuscript, a reviewer who has appropriated an author’s idea or data, complaints against editors, and so on, the resolution process will follow the flowchart provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (https://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts). The discussion and decision on the suspected cases are carried out by the Editorial Board.
Editorial Responsibilities
The Editorial Board will continuously work to monitor and safeguard publication ethics: guidelines for retracting articles; maintenance of the integrity of the academic record; preclusion of business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standards; publishing corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when needed; and excluding plagiarism and fraudulent data. The editors maintain the following responsibilities: responsibility and authority to reject and accept articles; avoiding any conflict of interest with respect to articles they reject or accept; promoting publication of corrections or retractions when errors are found; and preservation of the anonymity of reviewers.

SUBMISSION & PEER REVIEW PROCESS

Submission
All manuscripts should be submitted online via the journal’s website (http://submit.kjco.org) by the corresponding author. Once you have logged into your account, on-line system will lead you through the submission process in a step-by-step orderly process. Submission instructions are available at the website. All articles submitted to the journal must comply with these instructions. Failure to do so will result in return of the manuscript and possible delay in publication.
Peer Review Process
KJCO reviews all manuscripts received. A manuscripts first reviewed for its format and then sent to the two most relevant investigators of the field. In addition, if deemed necessary, a review of statistics may be requested. Authors' names and affiliations are removed during peer review. The acceptance criteria for all papers are based on the quality and originality of the research and its clinical and scientific significance. Acceptance of the manuscript is decided based on the critiques and recommended decision of the referees. An initial decision will normally be made within 4 weeks of receipt of a manuscript, and reviewers’ comments are sent to the corresponding authors by e-mail. Revised manuscripts must be submitted online by the corresponding author. The corresponding author must indicate the alterations that have been made in response to the referees’ comments item by item. Failure to resubmit the revised manuscript within 8 weeks of the editorial decision is regarded as a withdrawal. A final decision on acceptance for publication or rejection for publication is forwarded to the corresponding author from the Editorial Office.

MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION

General Requirements
  • The main document with manuscript text and tables should be prepared with an MS-word program.
  • The manuscript should be double spaced on 21.6×27.9 cm (letter size) or 21.0×29.7 cm (A4) paper with 3.0 cm margins at the top, bottom, and left margin.
  • All manuscript pages are to be numbered consecutively, beginning with the abstract as page 1. Neither the author's names nor their affiliations should appear on the manuscript pages.
  • Use only standard abbreviations; use of nonstandard abbreviations can be confusing to readers. Avoid abbreviations in the title of the manuscript. The spelled-out abbreviation followed by the abbreviation in parenthesis should be used on first mention unless the abbreviation is a standard.
  • The names and locations (city, state, and country only) of manufacturers of equipment and non-generic drugs should be given.
  • When quoting from other sources, give a reference number after the author's name or at the end of the quotation.
  • Authors should express all measurements in conventional units, with International System (SI) units.
Reporting Guidelines for Specific Study Designs
For the specific study design, such as randomized control studies, it is recommended that the authors follow the reporting guidelines listed in the following table.
InitiativeType of studySource
CONSORTRandomized controlled trialshttp://www.consort-statement.org/
STARDStudies of diagnostic accuracyhttp://www.stard-statement.org/
STROBEObservational studies in epidemiologyhttp://www.strobe-statement.org/
PRISMASystematic reviews and meta-analyseshttp://www.prisma-statement.org/
REMARKReporting recommendations for tumor marker prognostic studieshttp://www.nature.com/nrclinonc/journal/v2/n8/pdf/ncponc0252.pdf
Original Articles
Original articles are reports of basic or clinical investigations. Although there is no limitation on the length of these manuscripts, the Editorial Board may abridge excessive illustrations and large tables. The manuscript for an original article should be organized in the following sequence: title page, abstract and keywords, main text (introduction, methods, results, discussion), acknowledgments, references, tables, figure legends, and figures.
  • Title page: Include the following items on the title page: 1) the title of the manuscript, 2) author list, 3) names of each author's institutions and an indication of each author's affiliation, 4) the name, address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address of the corresponding author, 5) if necessary, state the source of any research funding and list of where and when the study has been presented in part elsewhere, 6) running title of fewer than 50 characters.
  • Abstract and Keywords: The abstract should be concise, less than 250 words, and describe concisely, in a paragraph, Purpose, Methods, Results, and Conclusion of the study in a structured format. Up to 5 keywords should be listed at the bottom of abstract to be used as index terms. For the selection of keywords, refer Medical Subject Heading (MeSH, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/mesh).
  • Introduction: Briefly describe the purpose of the investigation, including relevant background information.
  • Methods: Describe the research plan, the materials (or subjects), and the methods used, in that order. Explain in detail how the disease was confirmed and how subjectivity in observations was controlled. When experimental methodology is the main issue of the paper, describe the process in detail so as to recreate the experiment as closely as possible. The sources of special chemicals or reagents should be given along with the source location (name of company). If needed, include information on the institutional review board/ethics committee approval or waiver and informed consent. Methods of statistical analysis and criteria for statistical significance should be described.
  • Results: The results should be presented in logical sequence in the text, tables, and figures. And repetitive presentation of the same data in different forms should be avoided. The results should not include material appropriate to the discussion.
  • Discussion: Observations pertaining to the results of research and other related materials should be interpreted for your readers. Emphasize new and important observations; do not merely repeat the contents of the results. Explain the meaning of the observed opinion along with its limits, and within the limits of the research results connect the conclusion to the purpose of the research. In a concluding paragraph, summarize the result and its meaning.
  • Conflict of interest: State any potential conflict of interest that could influence the authors' interpretation of the data, such as financial support from or connections to pharmaceutical companies, political pressure from interest groups, or academically related issues.
  • Funding: All sources of funding applicable to the study should be stated here explicitly.
  • Acknowledgments: All persons who have made substantial contributions, but who have not met the criteria for authorship, are acknowledged here.
  • References: In the text, references should be cited with Arabic numerals in brackets (e.g., [1], [2,3], [4-6]), numbered in the order cited. In the references section, the references should be numbered and listed in order of appearance in the text. The number of references is limited to 30 for original article. List all authors if there are less than or equal to six authors. List the first six authors followed by "et al." if there are more than six authors. If an article has been published online, but has not yet been given an issue or pages, the digital object identifier (DOI) should be supplied. Journal titles should be abbreviated in the style used in Medline. Other types of references not described below should follow The NLM Style Guide for Authors, Editors, and Publishers.
Journal articles:
  1. Kim BK, Lee WY, Yun JA, Yun SH, Kim HC, Cho YB, et al. Analysis of factors influencing early readmission after resection of primary rectal cancer. Korean J Clin Oncol 2013;11:33-7.
  2. Roy AC, Hawkes EA, Bardy P, Woo T, Ting K, Astill D, et al. Rare case of precursor B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia presenting as a solitary paraspinal mass alone. J Clin Oncol 2013 Jun 24 [Epub]. https://doi.org/10.1200/JCO.2012.47.2308
Book & Book chapter:
  1. Gordon PH, Nivatvongs S. Principles and practice of surgery for the colon, rectum and anus. 3rd ed. Informa Healthcare; 2007.
  2. Urist MM, Soong SJ. Melanoma and cutaneous malignancies. In: Townsend CM Jr, Beauchamp RD, Evers BM, Mattox KL, editors. Sabiston textbook of surgery: the biological basis of modern surgical practice. 18th ed. Saunders Elsevier; 2008. p.767-85.
Dissertation:
  1. Kim YS. The relationship between low serum cholesterol level and cancer mortality [dissertation]. Seoul National University; 2012.
Conference paper:
  1. Rice AS, Brooks JW. Canabinoids and pain. In: Dostorovsky JO, Carr DB, editors. Proceedings of the 10th World Congress on Pain; 2002 Aug 17-22; San Diego, CA. Seattle (WA): IASP Press; 2003. p.437-46.
  2. Basile P, Iwanicki-Caron I, Toure E, Antonietti M, Lecleire S, Di Fiore A, et al. Usefulness of circulating tumor cell detection in pancreatic adenocarcinoma diagnosis [abstract]. J Clin Oncol 2013; 31(No 4_suppl):157.
Online sources:
  1. American Cancer Society. Cancer facts and statistics [Internet]. American Cancer Society; c2013 [cited 2013 May 10]. Available from: http://www.cancer.org/research/cancerfactsstatistics/
  • Table: The title of the table is written in English in the form of paragraphs and phrases at the top, with only the first letter capitalized and no punctuation at the end. Tables are to be numbered in the order in which they are cited in the text. A table title should concisely describe the content of the table so that a reader can understand the table without referring to the text. Each table must be simple and typed on a separate page with its heading above it. Explanatory matter is placed in footnotes below the tabular matter and not included in the heading. All non-standard abbreviations are explained in the footnotes. Footnotes should be indicated by a), b), c), d), ... Statistical measures such as SD or SE should be identified. Vertical rules and horizontal rules between entries should be omitted.
  • Figure & legends for illustrations: Acceptable figure file formats are AI, BMP, DOC, EMF, EPS, JPG, PDF, PPT, PSD, TIF, WMF, or XLS. Figures are loaded as separate files during submission process. Other formats of figure are negotiable. Contact editorial office for other formats. Contrast of figure file should be at least 600 dpi. Written permission should be obtained for the use of all previously published illustrations (and copies of permission letters should be included). In the case of multiple prints bearing the same number, use English letters after the numerals to indicate the correct order. (ex) Fig. 1A --, Fig. 1B, C. Figures should be numbered, using Arabic numerals, in the order in which they are cited. All the legends for figures should be written in English, and be self-explanatory. All the abbreviations should be described in each figure. The legends for each light microscopic photographs should include name of the stains and magnification (e.g., H&E stain, ×400). Electron microscopic photographs should have an internal scale marker and magnification (e.g., original bar length 100 μm, ×5,000).
  • Video submission: Video clips can be submitted for placement on the Journal website. All videos are subject to peer review and must be sent directly to the Editor by e-mail. A video file submitted for consideration for publication should be in complete and final format and at as high a resolution as possible. Any editing of the video will be the responsibility of the author. We accept all kind of video files not exceed 30 MB, less than 5 minutes duration, but recommend AVI, MPEG, Quicktime, RealMedia, WMV files. A legend to accompany the video should be double-spaced in a separate file. A still image from the video should be indicated for use in print or on a non-animated Web page to be linked to the video. All copyright for video files after acceptance of main article are automatically transferred to KJCO.
Case Reports
  • Case reports will be published only in exceptional circumstances, when they illustrate a rare occurrence of clinical importance. Case reports should address issues of importance to medical researchers and preferably should have helpful illustrations. The manuscript for a case report should be organized in the following sequence: title page, abstract and keywords, main text (introduction, case report, discussion), acknowledgments, references, tables, figure legends, and figures. The abstract should be unstructured and its length should not exceed 200 words. There should be no more than five figures, including tables, and no more than 15 references.
Reviews
  • Reviews are invited by the editor and should be comprehensive analyses of specific topics. They are organized as follows: title page, abstract and keywords, introduction, main text, conclusion, acknowledgments, references, tables, figure legends, and figures. There should be an unstructured abstract equal to or less than 200 words.
Correspondences
  • Correspondence (letters to the editor) may be in response to a published article, or a short, free-standing piece expressing an opinion. If the Correspondence is in response to a published article, the Editor-in-Chief may choose to invite the article’s authors to write a Correspondence reply.
Editorials
  • Editorials are invited by the editor and should be commentaries on articles in the current issue. Editorial topics could include active areas of research, fresh insights, and debates in all fields of clinical oncology.

FINAL PREPARATION FOR PUBLICATION

Final Version
After the paper has been accepted for publication, the author(s) should submit the final version of the manuscript. The names and affiliations of the authors should be double-checked and if the originally submitted image files were of poor resolution, higher resolution image files should be submitted at this time. The EPS, JPG, PPT, TIF formats are preferred for submission of digital files of photographic images. Symbols (e.g., circles, triangles, squares), letters (e.g., words, abbreviations), and numbers should be large enough to be legible on reduction to the journal’s column widths. All symbols must be defined in the figure caption. If references, tables, or figures are moved, added, or deleted during the revision process, renumber them to reflect such changes so that all tables, references and figures are cited in numeric order.
Manuscript Corrections
Before publication, the manuscript editor will correct the manuscript such that it meets the standard publication format. The author(s) must respond within 2 days when the manuscript editor contacts the author for revisions. If the response is delayed, the manuscript’s publication may be postponed to the next issue.
Gallery Proof
The author(s) will receive the final version of the manuscript as a PDF file. Upon receipt, within 2 days, the editorial office (or printing office) must be notified of any errors found in the file. Any errors found after this time are the responsibility of the author(s) and will have to be corrected as an erratum.

PUBLICATION PAGE CHARGES

For unsolicited manuscripts, the corresponding author is asked to pay for a part of the costs of article processing. The processing charge for an article is 100,000 Korean won (US $100.00) regardless of the type of article. (Woori Bank 1005-901-283811/Korean Society of Surgical Oncology)

CONTACT US

Editor-in-Chief: Hyuk Hur
Department of Surgery, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Severance Hospital, Seoul 03722, Korea
E-mail: hhyuk@yuhs.ac

Publisher: Korean Society of Surgical Oncology
101-3304 Brownstone Seoul, 464 Cheongpa-ro, Jung-gu, Seoul 04510, Korea
Tel: +82-2-393-2114, Fax: +82-2-393-1649
E-mail: ksco2004@paran.com






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Author's Index
Author's Index
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Editorial Office
101-3304 Brownstone Seoul, 464 Cheongpa-ro, Jung-gu, Seoul 04510, Korea
TEL : +82-2-393-2114   FAX : +82-2-393-1649   E-mail : ksco2004@daum.net

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