Guidelines to the Authors
Hellenic Journal of Radiology
Guidelines for Authors
Hellenic Journal of Radiology (“HJR”) is the official journal of the Hellenic Radiological Society, first published in 1968.
This revived edition of HJR, published in English, aspires to promote scientific knowledge in Radiology both at diagnosis and image guided therapy, worldwide. It is a peer-reviewed Journal, aiming at raising the profile of current evidence-based imaging practice and at improving the scientific multidisciplinary dialogue.
HJR presents clinically pertinent, original research and timely review articles. It is open to International authors and readers and offers a compact forum of communication to medical imaging and related science specialists.
1. Language
English is the official language of the journal. All submitted manuscripts should be written in English.
2. How to submit a paper
All submissions for peer-review should be performed online through the journal website (www.hjradiology.org)
The Editorial office and the Editor-in-chief will perform the initial assessment of the manuscript and if the manuscript is suitable for the journal and the submission is complete, it will be sent to the relative reviewers. The reviewing process that is followed is double blinded. During on-line submission, authors can enter the name/s of non-preferred reviewers.
The time allocated for reviewers to assess the manuscript and submit their recommendation is three weeks. The Editor-in-chief makes the final decision for publication. The Editorial office will communicate the reviewer’s comments and the decision to the authors.
3. Manuscript originality and copyright
The submitted manuscript should be original, should not contain previously published material and should not be under consideration for publication in another journal. The submission needs to be approved by all co-authors and in case of original research a ‘guarantor’ of the study is required. As ‘guarantor’ may be considered a senior author that is deemed to take overall responsibility for all aspects of the study (ethics, originality, consent, data handling, and all aspects of Good Medical Practice). The ‘guarantor’ of the study does not necessarily need to be the corresponding author.
The Hellenic Journal of Radiology will not hold legal responsibility should there be any claim for compensation.
All authors need to sign the copyright transfer form (link) and must have made substantial contributions as established by the ICMJE (http://www.icmje.org).
4. Conflict of interest disclosure
Each author needs to disclose any type of financial interest that is related to the study and might create a potential conflict. Funding of the study needs to be disclosed.
If there is no conflict of interest, this should be stated in the manuscript before the Reference section as follows: “The authors declared no conflicts of interest”.
5. Research ethics and compliance
The HJR follows the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (www.icmje.org). For all original articles a statement in the text of approval from the local ethics committee, a statement that research was performed according to the ethical standards as described by the Declaration of Helsinki and a statement that informed consent for participation in the study was obtained from all subjects, are required. In case of study with animals the following statement needs to be added in the text: ‘All applicable international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed’.
6. Permissions and plagiarism
For the use of any figures already published elsewhere the authors are required to obtain written permission from the copyright owner(s) and to submit the evidence in the submission process. Plagiarism will not be accepted in any case. Dedicated software will be used on this purpose; manuscripts with plagiarism will be returned to the corresponding author without consideration for peer review.
7. Types of manuscript
The HJR accepts the following types of articles:
- Original articles: The paper needs to offer new knowledge on diagnostic or interventional radiology. The conclusions need to be sound and supported by statistical analysis. When the accuracy of a diagnostic test is assessed, following the Standards for Reporting of Diagnostic Accuracy (STARD) flow diagram (http://www.stard-statement.org) is suggested. A structured abstract of 250 words, 3-5 keywords, text up to 4500 words, figures (up to four figures or eight figure parts), a maximum of six tables, a maximum of fifty references and a maximum of seven authors are required for original articles.
- Review Articles: The journal may accept systematic reviews, meta analyses and literature reviews of a subject. An unstructured abstract of 200 words, 3-5 keywords, text of no more than 6000 words, figures (up to eight figures), a maximum of six tables, a maximum of a hundred references and a maximum of three authors are required for review articles.
- Pictorial Essays: The purpose of pictorial essays is to provide a teaching message through high quality images. A brief text is required to accompany figures. An unstructured abstract of 200 words, 3-5 keywords, text of no more than 6000 words, a maximum of fifteen figures, a maximum of six tables, a maximum of a hundred references and a maximum of four authors are required for pictorial essays.
- Letters to the editor: Communication to the editor is welcome and will be published if they offer pertinent and/or constructive comment on articles published in Hellenic Journal of Radiology. Letters are published at the discretion of the Editorial team and should be received within three months after on-line publication of an article. Following acceptance, letters will be sent to authors for response. Letter communications should include text of no more than 500 words, up to two figures and ten references, without any abstract or keywords and a maximum of three authors.
- Clinical Case-Test Yourself: The purpose of the “Clinical Case-Test Yourself” manuscript is to offer readers the chance to test their skills in diagnosing rare disorders. The submitted cases should contain radiologic features that allow a narrow differential or an accurate diagnosis. The "Clinical Case-Test Yourself" manuscripts are not case reports with previously unreported imaging findings. The format for this manuscript consists of two parts. Part "A" represents the “Question” and consists of a title, a brief clinical history (maximum 100 words) and up to five figure parts with at least two showing pathology. The figure legends should only indicate the modality and should not reveal the abnormal findings. Part "B" represents the “Answer” and consists of a line statement of the diagnosis, and a Discussion of up to 1000 words, with no more than 10 references. In Part “B” the same figures as in Part “A” are repeated with the addition of explanatory legends and arrows. A maximum of ten references and a maximum of three authors are allowed.
8. Manuscript organization
A manuscript must contain the following parts for submission:
- Cover letter: Each manuscript needs to be accompanied by a cover letter signed by the corresponding author on behalf of the rest of the authors stating that the article is not under consideration in another journal. In case of article resubmission a point-by-point answer to the reviewers comments needs to be submitted with the cover letter.
- Title page: It includes the title of the manuscript, the names, affiliations and e-mail addresses of all authors and the affiliation, address, e-mail address, telephone and fax number of the corresponding author. The name and affiliation of the ‘guarantor’ of the study needs to be included in the title page for original articles.
Blinded manuscript
- Blinded title page including only the title of the manuscript with no affiliation.
- Abstract: An abstract presenting the most important results and conclusions is required for all papers except for Letters to the Editor. For Original Articles the abstract needs to be structured as follows: Purpose, Material and Methods, Results, Conclusions. For Reviews and Pictorial Essays, a 1-paragraph unstructured abstract is required.
- Keywords: Below the abstract, 3 to 5 keywords are required. Keywords need to be selected from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) database of the National Library of Medicine.
- Text structure: the text of the Original Articles needs to be organized as follows: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion. Review Articles, and Pictorial Essays require Introduction and Discussion sections only.
- Fonts: The suggested font is double spaced Times New Roman (12 pt).
- Abbreviations: Abbreviations should be used as minimum as possible. When used, they should be defined the first time they are used, followed by the acronym or abbreviation in parenthesis.
- Acknowledgements, sponsorships and grants: Acknowledgements need to be placed at the end of the manuscript before ‘References’ section. Any grant received or sponsorship from pharmaceutical companies, biomedical device manufacturers or other corporations whose products or services have been used needs to be included in the Conflicts of Interest Form and also mentioned in acknowledgements section.
- Measurement Units: All measurements should be mentioned in international units (SI). The full stop should be used as a decimal (i.e. 3.5 cm). Spaces should be added around the plus/minus symbol (i.e. 13.6 ± 1.2). There should not be any spaces around range indicators (i.e. 15-20) or equality/inequality symbols (i.e. r=0.37, p<0.005).
9. Figures and Tables
- All figures and tables need to be cited in text consecutively in the order in which they appear in text into brackets and in Arabic numbers: i.e. (Fig. 1) and (Table 1). Figure parts need to be identified with lower case letters, i.e (Fig. 1a).
- Figures need to be of high quality. Vector graphics, scanned line drawings and line drawings need to be in bitmap format and should have a minimum resolution of 1200 dpi. Halftones (photographs, drawings or paintings) need to be in TIFF or JPEG format, up to 174 mm wide and up to 234 mm high and in minimum resolution of 300 dpi.
- Patient anonymity should be ensured. All identifying data (name, identification numbers, initials) must be removed from text, images and tables. If it is mandatory for a patient’s face to be included in the manuscript, the eyes should be sufficiently masked. If there is a possibility that a patient may be identified from a photograph or relevant legend and text, the patient’s written consent should be submitted.
- A figure caption and a table caption need to be added in the figure and table section respectively for each figure and table.
- Tables should appear at the end of the main document, numbered in Arabic numerals, each on a different page. Each table should have a title describing its content. Abbreviations appearing in the table need to be explained in a footnote. All table columns must have a subhead that describes the type of data included in the column.
10. References
- The accuracy of references is the responsibility of the authors.
- References need to be cited in the text in the order in which they appear. The numbering need to be in Arabic numbers and placed in the respective areas of text into square brackets i.e [1].
- References that have not been published at the point of submission need to cited with the respective DOI (digital object identifier) number given for on-line first articles.
- All authors (surnames and initials of first name) should be listed when they are six or fewer. If authors are more than six, the first three authors should be listed, then ‘et al.’ needs to follow the name of the third author.
- When a book chapter is cited, the authors and title of the chapter, editors, book title, edition, city and country, publisher, year and specific chapter pages should be mentioned.
- For Online Document, the following should be mentioned: authors (if any), title of page, name of institution or owner of Web site; URL; dates of publication, update, and access.
Reference examples:
Journal article:
- Krokidis M, Hatzidakis A. Percutaneous minimally invasive treatment of malignant biliary strictures: current status. Cardiovasc Intervent Radiol 2014; 37(2): 316-23.
or
- Krokidis M, Hatzidakis A. Percutaneous minimally invasive treatment of malignant biliary strictures: current status. Cardiovasc Intervent Radiol 2014; doi: 10.1007/s00270-013-0693-0. Epub 2013 Jul 13.
Book chapters:
- Allen G, Wilson D. Current role for Ultrasonography. In: Karantanas A (ed). Sports Injuries in children and adolescents (Medical Radiology, Diagnostic Imaging). Springer, Berlin Heidelberg New York 2011, pp 83-97.
Online document:
- National Institute for Health and Care Excellence). SIR-Spheres for treating inoperable hepatocellular carcinoma. Available via nice.org.uk/guidance/mib63. Published May 10, 2013. Updated October 2, 2013. Accessed January 25, 2014.
11. Acceptance of manuscripts for publication is decided by the Editor, based on the results of peer review. Authors need to make proof corrections within 72 hours upon pdf supplied, check the integrity of the text, accept any grammar or spelling changes and check if all the Tables and Figures are included and properly numbered. Once the publication is online, no further changes can be made. Further changes can only be published in form of Erratum.
Guidelines for Authors
Hellenic Journal of Radiology (“HJR”) is the official journal of the Hellenic Radiological Society, first published in 1968.
This revived edition of HJR, published in English, aspires to promote scientific knowledge in Radiology both at diagnosis and image guided therapy, worldwide. It is a peer-reviewed Journal, aiming at raising the profile of current evidence-based imaging practice and at improving the scientific multidisciplinary dialogue.
HJR presents clinically pertinent, original research and timely review articles. It is open to International authors and readers and offers a compact forum of communication to medical imaging and related science specialists.
1. Language
English is the official language of the journal. All submitted manuscripts should be written in English.
2. How to submit a paper
All submissions for peer-review should be performed online through the journal website (www.hjradiology.org)
The Editorial office and the Editor-in-chief will perform the initial assessment of the manuscript and if the manuscript is suitable for the journal and the submission is complete, it will be sent to the relative reviewers. The reviewing process that is followed is double blinded. During on-line submission, authors can enter the name/s of non-preferred reviewers.
The time allocated for reviewers to assess the manuscript and submit their recommendation is three weeks. The Editor-in-chief makes the final decision for publication. The Editorial office will communicate the reviewer’s comments and the decision to the authors.
3. Manuscript originality and copyright
The submitted manuscript should be original, should not contain previously published material and should not be under consideration for publication in another journal. The submission needs to be approved by all co-authors and in case of original research a ‘guarantor’ of the study is required. As ‘guarantor’ may be considered a senior author that is deemed to take overall responsibility for all aspects of the study (ethics, originality, consent, data handling, and all aspects of Good Medical Practice). The ‘guarantor’ of the study does not necessarily need to be the corresponding author.
The Hellenic Journal of Radiology will not hold legal responsibility should there be any claim for compensation.
All authors need to sign the copyright transfer form (link) and must have made substantial contributions as established by the ICMJE (http://www.icmje.org).
4. Conflict of interest disclosure
Each author needs to disclose any type of financial interest that is related to the study and might create a potential conflict. Funding of the study needs to be disclosed.
If there is no conflict of interest, this should be stated in the manuscript before the Reference section as follows: “The authors declared no conflicts of interest”.
5. Research ethics and compliance
The HJR follows the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (www.icmje.org). For all original articles a statement in the text of approval from the local ethics committee, a statement that research was performed according to the ethical standards as described by the Declaration of Helsinki and a statement that informed consent for participation in the study was obtained from all subjects, are required. In case of study with animals the following statement needs to be added in the text: ‘All applicable international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed’.
6. Permissions and plagiarism
For the use of any figures already published elsewhere the authors are required to obtain written permission from the copyright owner(s) and to submit the evidence in the submission process. Plagiarism will not be accepted in any case. Dedicated software will be used on this purpose; manuscripts with plagiarism will be returned to the corresponding author without consideration for peer review.
7. Types of manuscript
The HJR accepts the following types of articles:
- Original articles: The paper needs to offer new knowledge on diagnostic or interventional radiology. The conclusions need to be sound and supported by statistical analysis. When the accuracy of a diagnostic test is assessed, following the Standards for Reporting of Diagnostic Accuracy (STARD) flow diagram (http://www.stard-statement.org) is suggested. A structured abstract of 250 words, 3-5 keywords, text up to 4500 words, figures (up to four figures or eight figure parts), a maximum of six tables, a maximum of fifty references and a maximum of seven authors are required for original articles.
- Review Articles: The journal may accept systematic reviews, meta analyses and literature reviews of a subject. An unstructured abstract of 200 words, 3-5 keywords, text of no more than 6000 words, figures (up to eight figures), a maximum of six tables, a maximum of a hundred references and a maximum of three authors are required for review articles.
- Pictorial Essays: The purpose of pictorial essays is to provide a teaching message through high quality images. A brief text is required to accompany figures. An unstructured abstract of 200 words, 3-5 keywords, text of no more than 6000 words, a maximum of fifteen figures, a maximum of six tables, a maximum of a hundred references and a maximum of four authors are required for pictorial essays.
- Letters to the editor: Communication to the editor is welcome and will be published if they offer pertinent and/or constructive comment on articles published in Hellenic Journal of Radiology. Letters are published at the discretion of the Editorial team and should be received within three months after on-line publication of an article. Following acceptance, letters will be sent to authors for response. Letter communications should include text of no more than 500 words, up to two figures and ten references, without any abstract or keywords and a maximum of three authors.
- Clinical Case-Test Yourself: The purpose of the “Clinical Case-Test Yourself” manuscript is to offer readers the chance to test their skills in diagnosing rare disorders. The submitted cases should contain radiologic features that allow a narrow differential or an accurate diagnosis. The "Clinical Case-Test Yourself" manuscripts are not case reports with previously unreported imaging findings. The format for this manuscript consists of two parts. Part "A" represents the “Question” and consists of a title, a brief clinical history (maximum 100 words) and up to five figure parts with at least two showing pathology. The figure legends should only indicate the modality and should not reveal the abnormal findings. Part "B" represents the “Answer” and consists of a line statement of the diagnosis, and a Discussion of up to 1000 words, with no more than 10 references. In Part “B” the same figures as in Part “A” are repeated with the addition of explanatory legends and arrows. A maximum of ten references and a maximum of three authors are allowed.
8. Manuscript organization
A manuscript must contain the following parts for submission:
- Cover letter: Each manuscript needs to be accompanied by a cover letter signed by the corresponding author on behalf of the rest of the authors stating that the article is not under consideration in another journal. In case of article resubmission a point-by-point answer to the reviewers comments needs to be submitted with the cover letter.
- Title page: It includes the title of the manuscript, the names, affiliations and e-mail addresses of all authors and the affiliation, address, e-mail address, telephone and fax number of the corresponding author. The name and affiliation of the ‘guarantor’ of the study needs to be included in the title page for original articles.
Blinded manuscript
- Blinded title page including only the title of the manuscript with no affiliation.
- Abstract: An abstract presenting the most important results and conclusions is required for all papers except for Letters to the Editor. For Original Articles the abstract needs to be structured as follows: Purpose, Material and Methods, Results, Conclusions. For Reviews and Pictorial Essays, a 1-paragraph unstructured abstract is required.
- Keywords: Below the abstract, 3 to 5 keywords are required. Keywords need to be selected from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) database of the National Library of Medicine.
- Text structure: the text of the Original Articles needs to be organized as follows: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion. Review Articles, and Pictorial Essays require Introduction and Discussion sections only.
- Fonts: The suggested font is double spaced Times New Roman (12 pt).
- Abbreviations: Abbreviations should be used as minimum as possible. When used, they should be defined the first time they are used, followed by the acronym or abbreviation in parenthesis.
- Acknowledgements, sponsorships and grants: Acknowledgements need to be placed at the end of the manuscript before ‘References’ section. Any grant received or sponsorship from pharmaceutical companies, biomedical device manufacturers or other corporations whose products or services have been used needs to be included in the Conflicts of Interest Form and also mentioned in acknowledgements section.
- Measurement Units: All measurements should be mentioned in international units (SI). The full stop should be used as a decimal (i.e. 3.5 cm). Spaces should be added around the plus/minus symbol (i.e. 13.6 ± 1.2). There should not be any spaces around range indicators (i.e. 15-20) or equality/inequality symbols (i.e. r=0.37, p<0.005).
9. Figures and Tables
- All figures and tables need to be cited in text consecutively in the order in which they appear in text into brackets and in Arabic numbers: i.e. (Fig. 1) and (Table 1). Figure parts need to be identified with lower case letters, i.e (Fig. 1a).
- Figures need to be of high quality. Vector graphics, scanned line drawings and line drawings need to be in bitmap format and should have a minimum resolution of 1200 dpi. Halftones (photographs, drawings or paintings) need to be in TIFF or JPEG format, up to 174 mm wide and up to 234 mm high and in minimum resolution of 300 dpi.
- Patient anonymity should be ensured. All identifying data (name, identification numbers, initials) must be removed from text, images and tables. If it is mandatory for a patient’s face to be included in the manuscript, the eyes should be sufficiently masked. If there is a possibility that a patient may be identified from a photograph or relevant legend and text, the patient’s written consent should be submitted.
- A figure caption and a table caption need to be added in the figure and table section respectively for each figure and table.
- Tables should appear at the end of the main document, numbered in Arabic numerals, each on a different page. Each table should have a title describing its content. Abbreviations appearing in the table need to be explained in a footnote. All table columns must have a subhead that describes the type of data included in the column.
10. References
- The accuracy of references is the responsibility of the authors.
- References need to be cited in the text in the order in which they appear. The numbering need to be in Arabic numbers and placed in the respective areas of text into square brackets i.e [1].
- References that have not been published at the point of submission need to cited with the respective DOI (digital object identifier) number given for on-line first articles.
- All authors (surnames and initials of first name) should be listed when they are six or fewer. If authors are more than six, the first three authors should be listed, then ‘et al.’ needs to follow the name of the third author.
- When a book chapter is cited, the authors and title of the chapter, editors, book title, edition, city and country, publisher, year and specific chapter pages should be mentioned.
- For Online Document, the following should be mentioned: authors (if any), title of page, name of institution or owner of Web site; URL; dates of publication, update, and access.
Reference examples:
Journal article:
- Krokidis M, Hatzidakis A. Percutaneous minimally invasive treatment of malignant biliary strictures: current status. Cardiovasc Intervent Radiol 2014; 37(2): 316-23.
or
- Krokidis M, Hatzidakis A. Percutaneous minimally invasive treatment of malignant biliary strictures: current status. Cardiovasc Intervent Radiol 2014; doi: 10.1007/s00270-013-0693-0. Epub 2013 Jul 13.
Book chapters:
- Allen G, Wilson D. Current role for Ultrasonography. In: Karantanas A (ed). Sports Injuries in children and adolescents (Medical Radiology, Diagnostic Imaging). Springer, Berlin Heidelberg New York 2011, pp 83-97.
Online document:
- National Institute for Health and Care Excellence). SIR-Spheres for treating inoperable hepatocellular carcinoma. Available via nice.org.uk/guidance/mib63. Published May 10, 2013. Updated October 2, 2013. Accessed January 25, 2014.
11. Acceptance of manuscripts for publication is decided by the Editor, based on the results of peer review. Authors need to make proof corrections within 72 hours upon pdf supplied, check the integrity of the text, accept any grammar or spelling changes and check if all the Tables and Figures are included and properly numbered. Once the publication is online, no further changes can be made. Further changes can only be published in form of Erratum.