Manuscript Types

Cancer Prevention and Care considers the following types of articles:

Research Papers – Articles reporting research may be full length or brief reports. These should report original research findings within the journal's scope. Papers should generally be a maximum of 4000 words in length, excluding tables, references, abstract and key points of the article, whilst references should not exceed 36.

Review Papers – Comprehensive, authoritative reviews within the journal's scope. Review articles provide a review of the literature. There are two types of review papers:
– systematic review papers: respond to a specific research question, accrue from a criterion-based selection of sources, including a quantitative synthesis that includes a statistical method (meta-analysis), and should adhere to PRISMA guidelines. Guidelines used for abstracting data and assessing data quality and validity should be noted in the methods section.
– narrative reviews: the research question may be broad, and the scope of this review is to discuss a specific topic and keep the readers up-to-date about it. This type of review does not necessarily include a methodological approach and its synthesis is usually qualitative. Narrative reviews should include a developments section with details regarding data sources used, keywords applied, time restrictions, and study types selected. Developments should be based on actual review articles.
All review papers should be generally less than 6000 words, excluding abstract, tables, figures and references. References should not exceed 50. The conclusion of the reviews should be specific and stem from the findings.

Short Reports – Brief reports of data from original research. Short reports are shorter versions of original articles, may include one table or figure, should not exceed 1500 words and 15 references. Short reports are suitable for the presentation of research that extends previously published research, including the reporting of additional controls and confirmatory results in other settings, as well as negative results. Authors must clearly acknowledge any work upon which they are building, both published and unpublished.

Study Protocols – Articles describing a research protocol of a study. This article type can be for proposed or for ongoing research and should contain the background, research hypothesis, rationale a detailed methodology of the study. The SPIRIT 2013 Checklist guidelines ideally should be applied. Study protocols submitted for publication must have received ethics approval. Protocols of randomized trials should follow the CONSORT guidelines and must have a trial registration number, while observational studies should follow STROBE guidelines.

Letters to the Editor – A letter to the Editor is a brief report that is within the journal's scope and of particular interest to the community, but not suitable as a standard research article. A maximum of ten articles may be included in the references. Letters to the Editor may be edited for clarity or length and may be subject to peer review at the Editors' discretion. To contribute, please contact the Editors. Letters intended for publication should be a maximum of 500 words, contain 10 references, and up to one table or figure. These rules apply for research letters, and letters that respond to articles published in the journal. Letters to the editor are subject to editorial editing so as to streamline the article with the journal's style. Corrections to published articles are also published as letters and linked to the corrected version of the article.

Editorials – Editorials are written by members of the Editorial Board and may reflect current articles within Cancer Prevention and Care or discuss significant national or international projects or initiatives.