Welcome to China Oncology,
1 Journal Introduction
China Oncology (CN 31-1727/R, ISSN 1007-3639) is a tumor academic journal supervised by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China and sponsored by Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center. It was founded in 1991 and is a monthly publication in Chinese. This journal mainly targets scientific researchers and medical personnel engaged in clinical, basic, and translational research on tumors. It is committed to reporting the latest achievements and cutting-edge progress in the fields of tumor "diagnosis, treatment, prevention, and research" at home and abroad, including original research, clinical practice guidelines, new progress, new technologies, and new methods. The journal aims to disseminate the latest frontiers in the field of oncology, promote academic prosperity and technological innovation, standardize and enhance the clinical tumor research capabilities and diagnosis and treatment levels of medical personnel, and fully serve the strategies of "strengthening the country through science and technology" and "healthy China". The journal has columns such as Expert Reviews, Special Articles, Original Articles, Reviews, Selected Original Articles, Case Reports, and Guidelines and Consensus.
This journal has been included in databases such as the Chinese Core Journals Catalogue (2023 Edition), Chinese Science Citation Database (CSCD), Chinese Scientific and Technical Papers Citation Database (China's Core Journals of Science and Technology), World Journal Citation Index (WJCI) Report (2024), DOAJ, SCOPUS, JST, EMBASE, EBSCO, CAS, Ulrich's Periodicals Directory, COAJ, GoOA, EuroPub, Copernicus Index, West Pacific Index, CNKI, Wanfang, VIP, and Chaoxing. It is a Class A journal in the Domestic Journal Guidance Catalogue for Fudan University Degree and Graduate Education and has won titles such as China's Outstanding Scientific Journals (F5000 Source Journals), China's Top 100 University Journals, and Shanghai's High-Quality Scientific Journals in University Journal Case Database.
2 Author Instructions
2.1 Manuscript Submission and Query
Only online submissions through the website (www.china-oncology.com) are accepted. Please read the submission instructions carefully before submission. Electronic copies of materials such as the unit certification (indicating originality, authenticity, and no duplicate submission), fund certification (if any), and ethical approval documents (if applicable) should be uploaded to the system. Do not submit the manuscript to multiple journals or use paper mills for submission. Once discovered, the author will be blacklisted. The following cases do not belong to duplicate submission: ① Articles published in preprint platforms; ② Articles published in non-publicly issued journals; ③ Articles presented at academic conferences; ④ Articles with the consent of the first-publishing journal and not published in Chinese. The manuscript status can be queried on the website, and status changes will be notified by email (if you follow the journal's WeChat official account, you will also receive reminders on WeChat).
2.2 Review Process
This journal strictly implements a review system, including the initial review by the responsible editor (focusing on submission form review and duplication rate), the academic initial review by the preliminary review expert group (quickly determining whether to reject the manuscript based on the content), peer review by experts (focusing on innovation, scientificity, and practicality), and the final review at the editorial decision-making meeting (focusing on whether the manuscript has been revised according to the peer review comments and conducting a multidisciplinary review of the article again). If the article passing the final review at the editorial decision-making meeting involves statistical content, it will be sent to a statistician for further review. The review cycle is generally 3 months. If no processing notice is received within 2 months after receiving the journal's receipt, the manuscript is still under review. If you want to submit the manuscript to another journal, please contact the editorial department to withdraw the manuscript first. Do not submit it to multiple journals. Before the manuscript is published, the editorial department undertakes the obligation to keep the manuscript content confidential.
2.3 Revision Principles
The revision process of this journal usually includes two rounds of revisions: ① Revision after peer review; ② Revision after acceptance. In principle, the authors should return the revised manuscript together with the revision statement within 2 weeks after receiving the revision notice. If it is impossible to revise and return on time due to special circumstances, please communicate with the editorial department in a timely manner, otherwise it will be regarded as an automatic withdrawal. The editor has the right to make appropriate text modifications, deletions, or additions to the manuscript. If major content changes are involved, the editor will confirm with the authors. The authors should be fully responsible for the published article, including ensuring the authenticity and accuracy of the content and being responsible for its possible social impacts. If the article contains plagiarism, copying, or factual errors, the authors need to bear all the responsibilities.
2.4 Publication fees
The publication fee is charged according to the pages of the article (500 CNY per page, the highest charges up to 8000 CNY per article), and there are no extra charges.
As for the articles published in the column of Guidelines and Consensus, Specialist’s Reviews, no publication fee would be charged. For the articles funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and other funds, China Oncology provides a certain discount on publication fees for authors.
3 Basic requirements for manuscripts
3.1 Submission Checklist
This journal follows the relevant requirements of ICMJE, EQUATOR, and COPE for biomedical paper writing and publication. Therefore, when submitting a manuscript, authors should conduct prior verification according to the disclosure requirements of different article types, such as randomized controlled clinical trials (CONSORT statement), observational studies (STROBE statement), systematic reviews (PRISMA statement), diagnostic accuracy studies (STRAD statement), clinical prediction model studies (TRIPOD statement), and case reports (CARE statement), to improve the transparency of paper content and other information and the manuscript acceptance rate.
Reporting Guidelines and Best Practices
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses: PRISMA guidelines (for protocols, see the PRISMA-P guidelines
Case reports: the CARE case report guidelines
Clinical trials: CONSORT Statement and CONSORT Checklist on Equator Network (for protocols, see the SPIRIT guidance)
Animal studies: ARRIVE guidelines and Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals
3.2 Information on the First Page of the Manuscript
Please attach an information front page before the article. The content of the front page includes: article title, author names and unit information, brief introductions of the first author and corresponding author, author contribution statement, main problems solved or innovation points of the study, conflict of interest statement, fund support information, and ethical statement.
3.2.1 Article Title Suggestion
The article title is a concise description of the entire article and should reflect three elements (research object, treatment factor, observation index) and the research design in the title, such as a retrospective cohort study. Try to avoid using abbreviations and trade names. Generally, it should not exceed 20 Chinese characters. The English title should be consistent with the Chinese one.
3.2.2 Author Information
All authors' Chinese and English names (in the form of surname first and given name last for English names, with the surname in all capitals and the initials of the given name capitalized, and no hyphen between double given names), units (including departments), provinces, cities, and postal codes should be listed completely. The ORCID, educational background, professional title, and position information of the first author and corresponding author should also be provided. The unit of the first author should be consistent with the unit to which the research data of the article belongs. Except for multicenter and multidisciplinary collaborative studies, this journal does not accept co-first authors and co-corresponding authors. If it is necessary to record authors with equal contributions, a written application should be submitted to the editorial department at the time of submission. In principle, the number, order, and units of the authors should not be changed after submission. If changes are required, all authors need to sign for approval. In addition to being responsible for the work they have completed, authors also need to know the specific parts of the research work for which other co-authors are responsible. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that the submitted manuscript fully meets the management requirements of the journal and should be able to answer the editor's questions in a timely manner during the entire publication process.
The corresponding author and the first author must simultaneously meet the following 4 criteria, and other authors should meet one of the following criteria: ① Make important contributions to the research idea or design, or obtain, analyze, or interpret data for the research; ② Draft the research paper or make critical modifications to important knowledge content; ③ Finalize the version to be published; ④ Agree to take full responsibility for the research work and ensure that any doubts related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the paper are properly investigated and resolved. Contributors who do not meet the criteria can be acknowledged.
3.2.3 Fund Project
For articles with fund support, the name and number of the fund should be indicated below the English keywords on the front page, and fund certification materials need to be provided. The affiliated fund should meet the "three consistencies" requirement, that is, the fund project personnel should be consistent with the authors, the fund project content should be consistent with the article content, and the fund time should be consistent with the paper publication time. For specific requirements, please refer to the fund review statement of this journal.
3.3 Manuscript Format
The manuscript paper should be A4 size, arranged in a single column, with the default page margins and 1.5-line spacing. The Chinese text font is Song typeface, size 5, and the English text font is Times New Roman, with the same size as the Chinese text and the default character spacing. The title levels in the text should be numbered continuously with Arabic numerals, with a maximum of 4 levels, and the numbers at different levels should be separated by a period, such as 1.1.1. If there are figures and tables in the text, they should be placed below the corresponding paragraphs in the text and numbered sequentially. Figure captions and table titles should also be provided.
3.4 Abstract
The abstract should be written in a long abstract format. The Chinese abstract is generally 800 - 1,000 words, and the English abstract should be consistent with the Chinese one. It should highlight the authors' original work, use objective statements, focus on reflecting innovative content, and emphasize the methods and results sections. Writing requirements: ① The abstract of original articles should be written as a structured abstract, divided into four parts: background and purpose, methods, results, and conclusions; ② Meta-analyses and systematic reviews should also be written as structured abstracts. The methods section should include the search databases, search terms, bias research, etc., and should be registered on the PROSPERO platform or Cochrane; ③ The abstract of review articles should be written as a reported abstract, which should include the latest research progress, conference reports, and a summary of research directions. Finally, there should be a prospective content; ④ The abstract of guidelines and consensus should be written as a reported abstract, summarizing the opinions of the guidelines/consensus. If it is a regularly updated guideline/consensus, the updated content can be described in detail. Guidelines and consensus should be registered on the International Practice Guidelines Registration and Transparency Platform.
3.5 Keywords
There should be 3 - 8 keywords, separated by semicolons. Please try to use the words listed in the Chinese Medical Subject Headings (CMeSH) published by the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. If there is no corresponding word in CMeSH, you can consider: ① Selecting several directly related subject words for combination; ② Selecting the most direct superordinate subject word according to the tree structure table; ③ Using commonly used free words and placing them at the end. The abbreviations in the keywords should be restored to their full names according to CMeSH.
3.6 Introduction
The introduction should clarify the research background, purpose, or hypothesis. It is recommended to cite directly relevant references, but do not involve their research data and conclusions. There is no need to list the serial numbers and titles.
3.7 Methods
3.7.1 Research Subjects
The selection of observed or experimental subjects should be clearly described, including the inclusion and exclusion criteria and the description of the source population. Representative populations should be included in various types of studies as much as possible, the screening process of research subjects should be clearly defined, and a screening flow chart should be attached.
3.7.2 Research Design
Observational studies should indicate whether they are cohort studies, case-control studies, or cross-sectional studies. The research design should specifically describe the types such as self-pairing, grouped, or crossover designs. Clinical trials need to indicate the phase, blinding measures, and quality control methods. The primary and secondary outcomes of the study should be specified in detail. The materials (including the full name of the manufacturer, and the country name should be added for foreign enterprises) and operation steps used in the study, such as drugs, equipment, instruments, and tools, should be introduced in detail.
3.7.3 Statistical Analysis
The statistical methods should be described in detail. If possible, the results should be quantified, and the results should be described using indicators (such as confidence intervals) that can appropriately reflect the measurement error or uncertainty, avoiding complete reliance on statistical hypothesis testing. The specific statistical software package and its version used should be introduced. Statistical symbols should be in accordance with the relevant standards of GB 3358.1 - 3358.2-2009 "Vocabulary and Symbols of Statistics".
3.8 Results
The results section should correspond one-to-one to the outcome indicators in the methods section. The flow chart of the inclusion of research subjects, the inclusion time, location, demographic characteristics, baseline data, etc., the main or most important research findings, and the data of the primary and secondary outcome indicators mentioned in the methods section should be provided. The content illustrated by figures and tables should be briefly summarized in the text.
3.9 Discussion
Briefly summarize the main results of the study at the beginning of the discussion, and then explore the possible mechanisms or explain these results. Emphasize the new findings of the study and discuss the results in combination with all relevant evidence. Point out the limitations of the study and explore the significance of the results for future research and clinical practice. Discuss the influence of variables (such as gender) on the research results or their association with the research results as appropriate. Do not repeat the data and information already described in the results, and avoid drawing conclusions when the data is insufficient.
3.10 Author Contribution Statement
At the end of the text, an author contribution statement should be attached, stating the specific work done by each author, such as direct participation (conceiving and designing experiments, conducting research, collecting data, analyzing/explaining data), article writing (drafting the article, reviewing and modifying the knowledge content of the article), work support (statistical analysis, providing financial, administrative, technical, or material support), and other contributions helpful to the research.
3.11 References
References should be numbered in the order of their appearance in the text and marked with the serial number in the upper right corner of the citation in the text. The references cited in the table are also numbered in order. The citation rules for references at the end of the text follow GB/T 7714-2015 "Information and Literature-Rules for Bibliographic References". Chinese references should be followed by their corresponding English translations. For references with 3 or fewer authors, all authors should be listed. For references with more than 3 authors, only the first 3 authors should be listed, followed by "et al.". The Chinese journal names should be in full, and the foreign journal names should be in the international common abbreviation form. The total number of references generally does not exceed 50.
The principles for citing references: ① Avoid citing articles from predatory journals or fake journals; ② When citing preprints, it should be clearly indicated that the citation is a preprint; ③ Do not use AI-assisted generated literature as references; ④ Avoid citing articles that have been withdrawn; ⑤ When citing an article that has been accepted but not yet published, it should be noted as "in press" or "forthcoming"; ⑥ Try to directly cite original research and avoid citing literature reviews as much as possible; ⑦ Try to cite references published in the past 3 years.
3.12 Figures and Tables
Figures and tables should be concise and clear, numbered sequentially, and placed with the text. Figure captions and table titles should be in both Chinese and English. The annotations of figures and tables should be in English. The text in figures should be in English. Tables should be in the form of three-line tables, and the text in tables should be in English. The English abbreviations in figures and tables should be noted in the annotations with their full names. Illustrations should be drawn with computer graphics software, and the modifiable source files should be provided. Photographs of gross specimens should have a scale bar, and histopathological images should indicate the staining method and magnification. Figures should be original. For non-original figures, an authorization letter should be submitted at the time of submission, and the citation literature and figure source should be marked on the figure.
3.13 Language Standard
The language standard refers to the General Standard Chinese Characters Table announced by the State Council in 2013. Medical terms should be in accordance with those approved and announced by the National Committee for Terminology in Sciences and Technologies. Pharmaceutical terms should follow the common names or chemical names in the Pharmacopoeia of the People's Republic of China (2020 Edition), and trade names are prohibited. If there is a conflict between a term and the General Standard Chinese Characters Table, the General Standard Chinese Characters Table shall prevail.
3.14 Punctuation Marks
The use of punctuation marks should comply with the regulations of GB/T 15834-2011 "General Rules for Punctuation".
3.15 Numbers, Quantities, and Units
The use of numbers should comply with the regulations of GB/T 15835—2011 "General Rules for the Use of Numbers in Publications": Arabic numerals should be used for Gregorian centuries, decades, years, months, days, times, and counting and measurement. The writing of percentages should be standardized. When multiplying numerical values with attached length units, the units should be listed separately. Measurement units should be in accordance with GB3100~3102—1993 "Quantities and Units". There should not be more than one slash in a combined unit symbol. The symbols of quantities should be in italics, and time units should be represented by symbols.
3.16 Abbreviations
Abbreviations should be avoided in the article title and keywords. When they first appear in the abstract and text, the Chinese full name should be marked first, followed by the English full name and abbreviation in parentheses, separated by a comma. If the abbreviation is widely recognized in the relevant field, the marking of the Chinese and English full names can be omitted as appropriate. For special noun abbreviations such as microorganisms, cells, nucleic acids, proteins, and genes, their attributes should be noted after the abbreviation.
4 Ethical and Legal Issues
4.1 Application of AI-assisted Technology
AI-assisted technology can only be used for language polishing and cannot replace key research tasks and paper writing, such as generating scientific insights, analyzing and interpreting data, or drawing scientific conclusions. When authors use AI-assisted technology for language polishing, they should carefully review to ensure that the polished content is consistent with the original meaning and be ultimately responsible for the content of the work. The application of AI-assisted technology should be declared when submitting the manuscript, and the relevant usage terms should be complied with. AI should not be listed as an author or co-author, nor should it be cited as the content of an author.
4.2 Multicenter Collaboration and Team Authorship
For any multicenter collaborative project involving human subjects, more than one corresponding author is required to guarantee the authenticity of the article and be responsible for determining the authorship order of each center. For articles with team authorship, the specific name of the team should be noted under the article title, the main responsible person of this article should be clearly identified, and the names, units, and departments of the authors should be listed at the end of the article, and the ORCID, educational background, professional title, and position information of the corresponding author should be provided.
4.3 Commercial Funding and Conflict of Interest Declaration
If a project has commercial funding, it is a potential conflict of interest, and a conflict of interest declaration form should be filled out. All authors need to fully disclose any possible "conflict of interest declarations"; if there is definitely no potential conflict of interest, it should be clearly stated that "there is no conflict of interest".
4.4 Ethical Standards
When human subjects are involved in research, the research process should comply with the Declaration of Helsinki and meet the ethical standards of the ethics committee. The authors should provide the approval document of the committee, ensure that the subjects or their families have signed the informed consent form, and mention the review and approval situation and ethical approval number in the text. If human images are used, the written consent of the patient should be obtained, the parts that can identify the identity should be covered, and the patient's name, hospital number, and other information should not be mentioned. Clinical trials need to be registered in a clinical trial registration center, and the registration situation and registration number should be mentioned in the text.
For research articles involving experimental animals, copies of the experimental animal production license, experimental animal use license, experimental animal quality certificate, and animal experiment welfare and ethics approval form (three certificates and one form) need to be provided to prove that the experimental process strictly follows the laws, regulations, and ethical standards for protecting animal rights and interests. The numbers of the above three certificates and one form should be noted in the article, and the necessary information about the animals used should be written.
4.5 Academic Misconduct
Academic misconduct includes but is not limited to plagiarism, forgery, alteration, improper authorship, multiple submissions of a manuscript, duplicate publication, violation of research ethics, third-party ghostwriting and submission, etc. To prevent academic misconduct, this journal has enabled "paper duplication detection". Manuscripts with a duplication ratio > 20% will be directly rejected. If serious academic misconduct is found during the review process, the manuscript will be rejected and the relevant responsible units will be notified. If serious academic misconduct is found in a published article, the article will be retracted and the relevant responsible units will be notified.
4.6 Copyright and Licensing
Once a manuscript is accepted, the author needs to sign a copyright transfer agreement, transferring the following rights in the copyright to the editorial department of China Oncology: including but not limited to the rights of compilation, reproduction, distribution, information network dissemination, broadcasting, performance, exhibition, projection, translation, adaptation, and other rights of derivative works (allowing database inclusion).
After publication, the author has the right of authorship, the right to keep the work intact, and the right to modification (if an error is found after publication, please contact the editorial department). The first author is the representative of the copyright owner. The author can use the article under the license of Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 (CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0). Prohibited derivative works include adaptation, translation, annotation, and compilation. In addition, it is not allowed to distribute any derivative products, including re-splicing the article, changing the publication form, or making new constructions on existing research materials. For other uses, the permission of the editorial department of China Oncology is required.
4.7 Data sharing policy
China Oncology follows the data sharing statement policy released by ICMJE:
The ICMJE’s data sharing statement policy is detailed in an editorial (see Updates and Editorials).
1. As of 1 July 2018 manuscripts submitted to ICMJE journals that report the results of clinical trials must contain a data sharing statement as described below.
2. Data sharing statements must indicate the following: whether individual deidentified participant data (including data dictionaries) will be shared (“undecided” is not an acceptable answer); what data in particular will be shared; whether additional, related documents will be available (e.g., study protocol, statistical analysis plan, etc.); when the data will become available and for how long; by what access criteria data will be shared (including with whom, for what types of analyses, and by what mechanism).
Authors of secondary analyses using shared data must attest that their use was in accordance with the terms (if any) agreed to upon their receipt. They must also reference the source of the data using its unique, persistent identifier to provide appropriate credit to those who generated it and allow searching for the studies it has supported. Authors of secondary analyses must explain completely how theirs differ from previous analyses. In addition, those who generate and then share clinical trial data sets deserve substantial credit for their efforts. Those using data collected by others should seek collaboration with those who collected the data. As collaboration will not always be possible, practical, or desired, the efforts of those who generated the data must be recognized.
(More information should be seen on ICMJE | Recommendations | About the Recommendations)
5 Others
5.1 Errata and Retraction
If serious errors such as data errors and expression problems are found after the article is officially published, the journal will contact the author in time to verify and make corrections. If the following situations are found in a published article, the article will be retracted and the author's unit will be notified: ① The article has serious unbelievable or non-subjective errors; ② The article is plagiarized; ③ The research violates medical ethics standards; ④ The article is submitted to multiple journals.
5.2 Duplicate Publication and Pre-publication
Duplicate publication refers to a large amount of duplication with a published article and no clear and explicit citation of the published article. Manuscripts that have been published in other journals or in full-text databases (such as dissertations) are considered duplicate publications and will not be accepted. Secondary analysis of clinical trial data should cite the first published article, clearly state that it includes secondary analysis and results, and use the same clinical trial registration number as the first analysis.
Before the article is officially published, the author cannot use it for public media promotion. Without the written permission of the journal, the published article cannot be authorized to others for compilation, reprinting, or publishing any part of it in any form. No unit or individual is allowed to privately publish the published article in the form of a booklet, offprint, etc. However, the author can cite part of the content of the article in his subsequent works or compile it in a non-journal anthology edited by the author.
Address: Room 415, Building 10, No. 270 Dong'an Road, Xuhui District, Shanghai;
Postal Code: 200032; Tel: 021-64188274.
Official website: www.china-oncology.com; E-mail: zgazzz@china-oncology.com.
Editorial Office of China Oncology
Competent Authorities
The Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China
Sponsored by
Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center
Edited by
Editorial Board of China Oncology
Editor-in-Chief
SHAO Zhimin
Honorary Editor-in-Chief
TANG Zhaoyou, CAO Shilong, SHEN Zhenzhou
Printed by
Shanghai Ouyang Printing Co., Ltd.
