Information for Authors

All papers should be submitted to Haematologica/The Hematology Journal through the ad hoc online manuscript processing system (http://submit-haematol.highwire.org/) powered by Bench>Press.

Manuscripts should be prepared according to the Uniform Requirements established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) (http://www.icmje.org/manuscript_1prepare.html). Before submitting a manuscript please download our detailed Instructions to Authors (http://www.haematologica.org/misc/Haematologica_Style.pdf).

Obligation to Register Clinical Trials (http://www.icmje.org/publishing_10register.html). The ICMJE believes that it is important to foster a comprehensive, publicly available database of clinical trials. The ICMJE defines a clinical trial as any research project that prospectively assigns human subjects to intervention or concurrent comparison or control groups to study the cause-and-effect relationship between a medical intervention and a health outcome. Medical interventions include drugs, surgical procedures, devices, behavioral treatments, process-of-care changes, and the like. Haematologica requires, as a condition of consideration for publication, registration in a public trials registry. The journal considers a trial for publication only if it has been registered before the enrollment of the first patient. This policy applies to trials that started recruiting on or after July 1, 2005. As regards trials that started recruiting before July 1, 2005, the ICMJE hoped that all such trials would be registered by September 13, 2005 [De Angelis et al. Clinical trial registration: a statement from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. N Engl J Med 2004 Sep 16;351(12):1250-1]. However, the ICMJE understands that this policy statement was not entirely clear. The ICMJE journals may therefore accept "retrospective registration" of trials that began before July 1, 2005 (retrospective meaning registration occurs after patient enrollment begins). In 2006, Haematologica [Anonymous. Registration of clinical trials: a step forward but still a long path ahead. Haematologica. 2006 Mar; 91:295-6] adopted this transition policy considering such trials only if they were adequately registered before journal submission. This transition policy ended in 2008, and therefore Haematologica may now consider trials that began before July 1, 2005, but were not registered prior to September 13, 2005, only if they have been adequately registered before 2008. The journal does not advocate one particular registry, but requires authors to register their trial in a registry that meets several criteria. The registry must be accessible to the public at no charge. It must be open to all prospective registrants and managed by a not-for-profit organization. There must be a mechanism to ensure the validity of the registration data, and the registry should be electronically searchable. An acceptable registry must include a minimum of data elements (http://www.icmje.org/publishing_10register.html). For instance, ClinicalTrials.gov (www.clinicaltrials.gov), sponsored by the United States National Library of Medicine, meets these requirements.

Randomized Clinical Trials. When submitting manuscripts that report on randomized clinical trials, authors should provide - as a separate document - a flow diagram in CONSORT format and all of the information required by the CONSORT checklist (http://www.consort-statement.org). When submitting meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials, authors should provide both the QUOROM statement checklist and the QUOROM statement flow diagram http://www.consort-statement.org/index.aspx?o=1065). Documented review and approval from a formally constituted review board (Institutional Review Board - IRB - or Ethics committee) is required for all studies (prospective or retrospective) involving people, medical records, and human tissues. Haematologica requires that the authors provide this information on the manuscript's website, and also that they report it explicitly under Design and Methods. When reporting experiments on animals, authors should be asked to indicate whether the institutional and national guide for the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.

Conflict of interest regarding papers that do not report original research (primary data). As detailed under Policies and Practices (http://www.haematologica.org/misc/policies.dtl) authors must disclose all relationships that could be viewed as potential conflicts of interest both in the online manuscript submission system and in the manuscript. These disclosures are expected to help readers in establishing whether the reported relationships may influence the authors’ judgment. Haematologica believes that this procedure is appropriate with respect to papers reporting original research (original articles, brief reports and research letters) as primary data speak for themselves. This procedure may be insufficient with respect to papers that do not report primary data, such as editorials, perspective articles, commentaries, review articles, guidelines, consensus papers and position papers. As stated by Kassirer & Angell [Kassirer JP, Angell M. Financial conflicts of interest in biomedical research. N Engl J Med. 1993 Aug 19;329(8):570-1. PubMed PMID: 8204121] “unlike reports of original research, these articles represent the judgment of their authors, based on their evaluation of the literature. What studies they select to discuss and their analysis of them are necessarily subjective. Bias may be extremely difficult to detect because these articles contain no primary data to speak for themselves.” Nonetheless, disclosing relationships that could be viewed as potential conflicts of interest may be acceptable in many of these papers. Haematologica, however, no longer considers for publication papers not reporting primary data - such as those listed above - whose preparation has been promoted, sponsored or supported in any way by a company whose product is discussed in the paper. In fact, the clear conflict of interest is very likely to influence judgment in these cases, and there are no primary data that can speak for themselves. This point is detailed in the online manuscript processing system; if doubts exist about this issue, the authors are invited to contact the editorial office (office{at}haematologica.org) before proceeding with submission.

Editorials and Perspectives are typically solicited by the Editors to accompany an accepted manuscript. These manuscript should be concise and should not exceed 3-4 printed pages.

Original Articles should normally be divided into an abstract, introduction, design and methods, results, discussion and references. The abstract should contain about 250 words and must be structured as follows: background, design and methods, results, conclusions. A maximum of 20 authors is permitted, and additional authors should be listed in an ad hoc appendix. A maximum of 6 relevant tables and/or figures (in total) are allowed. Original articles should not exceed 8 printed pages: should a paper exceed 8 printed pages, the authors will be invited to omit parts of the article, which might be published online exclusively as a supplementary appendix. Exceptions are granted on a case-by-case basis by the Editors.

Review Articles are typically solicited by the Editors, but the journal may also consider reviews submitted on authors' own initiative: pre-submission inquiries are welcome. No particular format is required for these articles. However, they should have an informative, unstructured abstract of about 250 words, and ideally should not exceed 8 printed pages.

Decision Making and Problem Solving papers typically include meta-analyses, guidelines and consensus papers by scientific societies or working groups. These studies must be conducted following proper, widely accepted ad hoc procedures. They should have an informative, unstructured abstract of about 250 words, and ideally should not exceed 8 printed pages. At the discretion of the Editors, these papers may appear in the print version or in the online version of the Journal.

Brief Reports must provide conclusive findings: preliminary observations or incomplete findings cannot be considered for publication. They should be signed by no more than 10 authors. Brief reports should have a short abstract of no more than 150 words, a text of about 1500-2000 words, a maximum of 3 tables and/or figures (total), and up to 24 references. They should not exceed 4 printed pages.

Case Reports are no longer considered for publication: authors are invited not to submit them as Brief Reports, unless they include peculiar studies such as those concerning molecular basis of disease.

Letters to the Editor should typically refer to a recent article, and the Editors may invite the article's authors to write a reply. Short letters not about a journal article may also be considered, but the journal can publish only a small minority of them. Letters should be signed by no more than 6 authors. These manuscripts should contain up to 750 words, can include one or two figures and/or tables, and up to 12 strictly relevant references. At the discretion of the Editors, letters may appear in the print version or in the online version of the Journal.

References should be prepared strictly according to the Vancouver style or the Haematologica style, which are present in EndNote (for further details see the URL: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html). References must be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first cited in the text, and they must be identified in the text by arabic numerals. References to personal communications and unpublished data should be incorporated in the text and not placed under the numbered References.

A Nonrefundable Fee of Euro 50 (fifty) is due on submission of Original Articles, Brief Reports, Decision Making and Problem Solving Articles, unsolicited Review Articles, unsolicited Editorials and unsolicited Perspective Articles. No submission fee is required for solicited Articles, and for Letters to the Editor or Responses to a Letter to the Editor. If a submission fee is required, the authors will be asked to pay it online using a credit card in order to complete the submission process. The authors who are submitting a manuscript that involves payment of the submission fee should carefully consider that: a) this fee covers the cost of the manuscript processing through the journal's online submission system; b) as such, this fee is not refundable once the manuscript has been submitted and the related payment has been made; c) this is not a review fee, and the payment of the submission fee is in no way related to the outcome of the inhouse and/or external peer-review process; d) a receipt will be sent to the corresponding author. Page and Color Charges.

Haematologica is an Open Access Publication, as the Ferrata Storti Foundation believes that works reporting the results of scientific research should be as openly accessible and freely usable as possible. To continue to provide open access, however, the journal now needs to share the high costs of publication with authors. Therefore, authors are now required to pay page charges of Euro 60 (sixty) plus VAT per printed page: page charges are waived for any type of invited article and Letters to the Editor. The journal also needs to share with authors the costs of printing images in color, as detailed in the online manuscript submission system.

Galley Proofs should be corrected and returned by e-mail or fax within 48 hours.

Transfer of Copyright and Permission to Reproduce Parts of Published Papers. Authors will grant copyright of their articles to the Ferrata Storti Foundation. No formal permission will be required to reproduce parts (tables or illustrations) of published papers, provided the source is quoted appropriately and reproduction has no commercial intent. Reproductions with commercial intent will require written permission and payment of royalties.