Focus and Scope

Cardiac and Cardiovascular Research (CCR) is a journal dedicated to the publication of original and groundbreaking research in the field of cardiovascular science and medicine. This journal aims to augment the scientific understanding and clinical management of cardiac and vascular pathologies, thereby contributing to advancements in the treatment of these prevalent disease states. Our publication scope encompasses a broad range of basic science investigations as well as cutting-edge clinical research, ensuring that the findings disseminated reach the widest possible audience of researchers and clinicians.

The journal will specifically address the following topics but not limited to: 

Article Types

Article

An article offering methods and results of original research. In past publications, this type of article was called the “Research Article” or “Original Research Article”.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Review

A summary providing a comprehensive review of original research, as well as discussing current research gaps and future trends in the field.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Editorial

An article providing official news of the journal (e.g., the introduction of a section collection, the launch of a new journal, etc.) or opinions of the journal editors on a closed issue. Editorials are solicited and will not be peer-reviewed.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Case Report

A report presenting symptoms, signs, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up of a patient. Case reports are usually published in medical journals.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Brief Report

A short report of preliminary studies or original research, which provides fewer details compared with an original research article.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Perspective

An article presenting the authors’ viewpoints on a specific area. Different from review articles, perspective articles introduce current advances and focus more on future trends in the field and may take a narrower field of view.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Methods

it presents new or improved version of experimental methods, tests or procedures pertaining to the field of Cardiac and Cardiovascular Research.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Opinions

A short article containing the authors’ understanding and standpoints on the interpretation, analysis, or methods used in any research area.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Book Review

A short article giving a brief summary of a book. The book title and the names of all authors should be included in the title of the book review. The content of a book review may include the content and scope of the book and comments on the quality of the book.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Communication

A short article introducing original and significant research that requires rapid publication.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Hypothesis

An article proposing a new hypothesis or theory with a new interpretation of recent data or findings in the field.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Peer Review Process

All papers submitted to Cardiac and Cardiovascular Research (CCR) are subjected to a stringent double-blind peer reviewed process. This is to uphold the high quality of papers published in CCR and ensure that the reporting of research work is truthful and accurate.

1. Upon submission, a manuscript is reviewed by the managing editor of the journal to assess for integrality and similarity. Once the manuscript has passed this pre-screening check, it will be passed to one of the academic editors (the Editor-in-Chief for a regular submission, the Guest Editor for a Section Collection submission, or Editorial Board members. Whoever they are, the above-mentioned roles ensure to have no conflicts of interest).
2. The assigned academic editor carefully evaluates the manuscript to determine if its topic and content are suitable for consideration.
3. The assigned academic editor invites at least two independent-external reviewers who are suitably qualified to assess the paper. Authors can recommend reviewers or provide an avoidance list, and basic information for identifying and contacting the reviewers should be given. The recommended reviewers may not be invited upon the decision of the assigned academic editor.
4. Reviewers are asked to evaluate the manuscript's originality, methodology, contribution to the literature, presentation of results and support for the conclusion, and appropriate referencing of previous relevant studies.
5. According to the evaluation reports by the reviewers along with a review from the assigned academic editor, the Editor-in-Chief makes one of the following decisions: accept the submission, accept with minor revisions, accept with revisions required (major revisions), require resubmission for review, or decline the submission.
6. If the Editor-in-Chief suggests minor revisions, authors are given a maximum of 5 days to revise and resubmit the manuscript.
7. If the Editor-in-Chief suggests major revisions, authors are given a maximum of 14 days to revise and resubmit the manuscript.
8. After the re-submission of the revised manuscript, the above steps are repeated before the manuscript is accepted for publication.
9. Authors of rejected submissions have the right to make an appeal in writing to the editorial office of the specific journal (for CCR, editorial-ccr@apacsci.com) within 4 weeks of receiving the decision. The written appeal should include specific reasons for the appeal and point-by-point responses to the reviewers' comments.
10. Decisions made on appeals by the Editor-in-Chief are final and no further considerations will be made.

Publication Frequency

The publication frequency of Cardiac and Cardiovascular Research is Semi-annual.

Open Access Policy

Asia Pacific Academy of Science Pte. Ltd. (APACSCI) publishes its journals in the Gold Open Access format. The benefits of this publishing model are as follows:

• Authors retain their copyright without restriction.
• Articles are immediately published online and available for free reading and download.
• No special permission to share or adapt the material in the published articles.

All articles published by Cardiac and Cardiovascular Research are licensed under the Creative Commons International Licenses. Without any explicit request from the corresponding author during the submission stage, a paper will be published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) by default.

Publishing Ethics

APACSCI upholds the spirit of strict adherence to high ethical standards. This is consistent with APACSCI's mission of publishing high-quality articles and promoting open scientific exchanges globally. APACSCI follows the Ethical Oversight Guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) in overseeing the publication process, as well as the activities of APACSCI journals, editors, and reviewers.

APACSCI and all the editors adhere to the following guidelines:

1. Core Practices and Best Practice Guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE);

2. Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), and World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).

3. Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals from the International Committee of Medical Journals Editors (ICMJE).

APACSCI is committed to protecting the privacy of its contributors and promises not to disclose personal information to third parties without permission, unless for necessary purposes of the publishing process or required by law.

Complaints and appeals

APACSCI takes allegations of misconduct (refer to the Misconduct Policy for more details) seriously and will launch an immediate investigation by a group of investigation members. Decisions will be made by the investigation group based on clear evidence, and the authors will be informed. If there is any appeal against the decision, it must be made to the publisher within 14 days of the decision date, or else actions will be taken after 14 days. The decision on the appeal is final.

Authors also could express complaints and concerns about delays, extensions, and unreasonable handling procedures during the editing process and the time it takes. The editor-in-chief will be accountable for initiating an investigation into the issue, and the complainant will receive feedback. Reasonable editing procedures will be enhanced.

Any complaints and appeals against APACSCI journals and editors can be directed to the publisher at editorial_office@apacsci.com, and APACSCI follows COPE guidelines in handling all complaints and appeals.

Research Involving Human Subjects

Authors who carry out research involving humans must declare that their studies followed the WMA Declaration of Helsinki. They must obtain approval from the concerned research ethics committee before carrying out the research and accept the monitoring by the committee. During the submission stage, authors are required to attach a statement containing the name of the ethics committee, the approval code, etc.

Informed consent to participate in the research must be obtained from all human subjects or their guardians. A statement on the consent to participate should also be included during submission. If there is no need for informed consent, authors must provide the name of the ethics committee and the reason for the absence of the need for informed consent.

Human subjects' right to privacy right is inviolable. Authors should not disclose any identifying information, including but not limited to names, initials, contacts, and medical record numbers, unless the absence of such information may influence the interpretation of the research. In addition, written informed consent for publication from the participants should be obtained. If participants are vulnerable, informed consent should be given by their guardians. Authors must inform the participants if pictures of their bodies (e.g., faces) have to be included in the manuscript and receive consent for publication. In the case of deceased human subjects, their next of kin or legal representative should be asked for consent.

Research Involving Animal Subjects

All studies involving animals should be approved by an ethics committee before the research is conducted. If ethical approval is not required by national laws, exemption from the ethics committee, the name of the ethics committee, and the reason should be provided by the authors during submission.

The following guidelines can be helpful for authors in upholding high ethical standards and avoiding submission rejection

• Code of Practice for the Housing and Care of Animals Used in Scientific Procedures
• ARRIVE Guidelines
• Three Rs
• Core Principles for the Care and Use of Animals in Research
• EU Regulations on Animal Research

APACSCI applies The ARRIVE Essential 10: Compliance Questionnaire for evaluating comparative experiments in living animals. Authors can also use it as a checklist.

Authorship

Based on the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), authorship should be limited to those who meet the following four criteria:

1. Contributed substantially to the conception or design of the manuscript or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the manuscript; AND
2. Drafted the manuscript or reviewed it critically for significant intellectual content; AND
3. Have final approval of the version to be published; AND
4. Agreed to be responsible for the manuscript in ensuring that problems relating to the accuracy or completeness of any part of the manuscript are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Individuals who do not meet the above four criteria should not be listed as authors but should be acknowledged. All authors are expected to make meaningful contributions to this work. The publisher strictly prohibits false authorships, including those obtained through purchase, and only recognizes genuine contributions. Authors should disclose whether artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted technologies were used in the preparation of their manuscripts and how they used them. Authors should also report the use of AI for writing assistance in the Acknowledgment section. AI tools should not be used in sections that rely on human intellectual analysis, such as data interpretation and conclusion summarization. 

A corresponding author should be marked with "*", and the maximum of corresponding authors is two. A corresponding author serves as a representative of the authors and is responsible for contacting editors and reviewers, e.g., submitting manuscripts, responding to reviews, accepting queries, proofreading galleys, making corrections, etc. 

Changes to Authorship

Authorship changes (addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names) should be made before the acceptance of the manuscript. Confirmation from all authors (including existing authors and author(s) to be added and/or removed) should be provided to the editorial office of the journal, together with the reason for such changes. Changes can be made after the approval of the journal. The publisher will deal with any changes or dispute over authorship following the COPE flowcharts of authorship and contributorship.

Conflict of Interest

Authors are required to declare any potential conflicts of interest (financial or non-financial). Any agreements with study sponsors (for-profit or non-profit), such as those that interfere with the authors' access to the study's data or with the authors' ability to analyze or interpret the data and to publish manuscripts independently according to their own decision, should be avoided by authors at all costs.

APACSCI also requires reviewers and editors to declare any (potential) non-financial conflicts of interest and declare any unpaid roles or relations that may influence the decision on the manuscript's publication. These include, but are not limited to, unpaid roles in a governmental or non-governmental organization, unpaid roles in an advocacy or lobbying organization, and unpaid advisory positions in a commercial organization.

In addition, reviewers and editors must disclose any association that poses a conflict of interest in connection with the manuscript. Examples are personal or work-related relationships with one of the authors or the reviewer is on the authors' avoidance list.

Misconduct Policy

Following COPE guidelines, APACSCI will not accept any misconduct behaviors that may mislead researchers.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is not acceptable. Using the content from one's own previously published articles without proper citation is also considered plagiarism. APACSCI adopts Crossref Similarity Check (powered by iThenticate) for checking the originality of submissions. Manuscripts with a high similarity index may be rejected.

Fabrication and falsification

Fabrication and falsification of data or images will mislead researchers. APACSCI strongly opposes such practices and will reject suspicious submissions.

Duplicate submission

Duplicate submission of a manuscript that has been published or submitted to other journals at the same time will not be considered.

Manipulation

Peer review manipulation is expressly forbidden. In particular, peer review manipulation by editors involves ethical issues, and when detected or complained about, editors are dealt with seriously and are subject to dismissal.

Eliminate excessive manipulative citation included in the peer review process by reviewers. Reviewers are encouraged to suggest that authors add references that are necessary and constructive to the research. Reviewers' own articles that do not contribute to the scholarly content of the author's work must not be oversold for the sole purpose of inflating the number of citations to the reviewer's own article.

Authors are prohibited from over-citing their own previously published articles. The journal's editorial board will determine self-citation thresholds, which authors must strictly adhere to in order to eliminate any suspicion of citation manipulation.

Editors will be involved in the journal management process to detect citation manipulations from authors or reviewers.

As behaviors above are illegal academic and very unethical, the Publisher will deal with it seriously. If any misconduct action is verified, authors and their institutions will be informed, and all the journals of the Publisher will not receive any new submission from these authors and their institutions  in three years. If the allegations are disputable, their institutes are responsible to cooperate with the journal in investigating allegations.

If there are any suspicious allegations of the processing of articles especially the peer review process, referring to For Reviewers, the Editor-in-Chief will receive the complaint, and an investigation group will be formed to investigate the entire process, including the reviewers, editors, and staff who are involved. The journal will follow the procedures described in COPE and Publishing Ethics for handling allegations of misconduct.

Language

The language of all manuscripts must be English (either British or American) and non-English words should be used sparingly. Poor English may lead to article rejection. Authors are encouraged to seek language polishing by a native English speaker or a professional editing service.

Correction, Retraction and Withdrawal

Correction

Authors are responsible for approving the final version of their manuscript and they should avoid any errors prior to publishing. In the case of errors that occur in a published article and have no influence on research results, APACSCI will issue a correction/erratum.

Authors, readers, and editors are encouraged to report any errors found in published papers. Please contact the editorial office of the particular journal.

Retraction

Based on COPE guidelines, the following conditions can lead to the retraction of a published article:

• Unreliable findings
• Plagiarism
• Published elsewhere without proper attribution to previous sources, disclosure to the editor, permission to republish, or justification
• Containing material or data without the authorization for use
• Infringement of copyright, violation of privacy, or other legal issues
• Unethical research
• Dubious peer review processes
• Failing to disclose a major competing interest

If any of the above misconduct proved to be true, a retraction notice will be issued with the reason, while the PDF of the retracted article will be watermarked with "Retracted". The journal editors will inform the authors of the retraction.

Paid Article Processing Charges will not be refunded to the authors if retraction occurs.

Withdrawal

Although not encouraged, authors can initiate the withdrawal of their submission before and during the peer review process by providing the reason. However, authors should note that a penalty fee of US$200 will be imposed for the withdrawal of a submission undergoing the peer review process due to the spent efforts on the evaluation of the manuscript by the editors and reviewers. Upon the approval of submission withdrawal, the submission will be removed from the journal's operation system, and the authors be informed.

Accepted articles and articles in press may also be withdrawn due to infringements of professional ethical codes (similar reasons to those for retraction).

Preprint Policy

APACSCI allows authors to post preprints of the manuscript of their original research articles (limited to only this type of article) on community preprint servers, such as arXiv, bioRxiv, and PeerJ Preprint, prior to or simultaneous with their manuscript submission to APACSCI journals. Authors retain the copyright of the manuscript posted on a preprint server.

Authors should inform the editors of the preprint version of their submitted manuscript in a cover letter, as well as provide any associated accession numbers or DOIs. Revised versions per the result of the peer review process and accepted versions for publication should not be posted on a preprint server.

Upon publication of the article, APACSCI encourages authors to link the article in the preprint server to the journal site, so as to guide readers to access and refer to the final version of the article.

Editorial Policies

Authors should read the "Author Guidelines" before making a submission, and make sure that the manuscripts were written in accordance to the style and specifications of the journal's policy.

All manuscripts submitted to Cardiac and Cardiovascular Research are subject to rigorous peer review. Prior to peer review process, the manuscripts will be screened for acceptable English language, novelty and relevance to the Focus and Scope of the journal.

Any manuscripts submitted to Cardiac and Cardiovascular Research will be treated as confidential materials. The manuscripts will not be disclosed to anyone except individuals such as editorial staff, reviewers and editors who participate in the initial screening, review, processing and preparation of the manuscript for publication (if accepted).

A manuscript would not be accepted if it has been published or is currently under consideration for publication in any other journals. The authors are required to notify the editorial team if the findings and data in their submissions have been presented in conferences.

Disclaimer

The opinions, statements, methods, results, and data in APACSCI's published articles are those of the authors and do not reflect the opinions of APACSCI and its editors. APACSCI disclaims responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, or products referred to in the articles or advertisements.

Copyright and License

Authors contributing to APACSCI journals retain the copyright.

All articles published by Cardiac and Cardiovascular Research are licensed under the Creative Commons International Licenses. Without any explicit request from the corresponding author during the submission stage, a paper will be published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) by default. Authors who would like to publish their work under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0), they should express their request during the submission stage. Please include the statement below in the "Comments for the Editor column" on the submission page:

The contributors or authors for this submission entitled "[MANUSCRIPT TITLE]", i.e. [NAMES of ALL AUTHORS], have given their consents to alter the Creative Commons License to *CC BY-NC 4.0* under which this submission will be published in Cardiac and Cardiovascular Research.

It is the responsibility of authors to obtain permission to reuse material previously published under a more restrictive license from the copyright holder before the submission stage. These may include figures, tables, and schemes.

Advertising Policy

The publisher requests that this journal only consider advertising applications that are relevant to the contents of the journal, if available.

1. The publisher (APACSCI) reserves the right to accept or refuse advertising. The Journal Editorial Office will evaluate whether to accept the request.
2. Advertisements must comply with relevant rules and laws in the country where they will appear.
3. Advertisements should be legible and advertisers identifiable. Sponsors may not arrange or influence editorial decisions including any content in the journal.
4. Advertisements must not be misleading or deceptive. Advertising content must not contain indecent, offensive, or sensitive information (such as politics, ethnicity, gender, religion, etc.).
5. APACSCI disclaims responsibility for any damages resulting from advertisements in its journals. The publisher or journal does not accept advertisements for products or services known to be harmful to health/science or contrary to academic principles.
6. Unless the advertiser requests differently, all advertisements posted by the publisher will be displayed at random. Special requests need to be addressed to the publisher, who will make a final decision on a case-by-case basis within 7 working days.
7. Advertising is independent, with journal web features and academic content free from all advertising and product interference.
8. Once an advertisement is posted online, it will be removed from the journal's website at any time if the Editor-in-Chief or publisher requests that it be removed.

For any advertisement queries or appeals/complaints, please contact APACSCI at editorial_office@apacsci.com.

Article Processing Charges (APCs)

APACSCI's publishing model is open access. Open access enables readers to freely access and download articles immediately after publication online. APACSCI charges authors article processing charges (APCs) so as to cover operation costs, such as those arising from the evaluation and production processes. APCs should be paid upon the acceptance of articles and ahead of publication.

APCs of Cardiac and Cardiovascular Research are USD $300.

Waiver and Discount Policy

APACSCI believes there should be no barriers to the dissemination of knowledge, and thus APACSCI offers APC waivers and discounts to authors from low-income countries and authors with special circumstances. Authors should write to the editorial office of the specific journal to apply for waivers and discounts. The decision to approve such applications is made by the editorial office on a case-by-case basis.

Indexing & Archiving

• All the articles published online will be archived by Portico for long-term digital preservation.

• Authors are encouraged to self-archive the final version of their published articles into institutional repositories (such as those listed in the Directory of Open Access Repositories).

• Authors are also encouraged to use the final PDF version published on the website of Cardiac and Cardiovascular Research.

Section Collection Policy

The Section Collection program has been driven by Asia Pacific Academy of Science Pte. Ltd. for a new chance to run an open access journal. This program aims to collect multidisciplinary topics, and concentrate authors from diverse research fields to focus on a special theme. It is great attempt to develop new ideas and applications. Section editorial team is composed of many scientists whose research fields covering various interests. They all supervise the implementation of the program, and the editorial process must comply with editorial policies of each journal.

A Section Collection is usually launched by an expert with great trust among peers and invited by the Editorial Office, or scholars could apply a section collection. Section Editors are representatives focusing on a theme from multidisciplinary topics. They have different research background, and gather to initiate new ideas and collaborations. Great responsibilities of Section Editors include:

• Preparing the title, summary, keywords, submission deadline, etc.
• Preparing a potential contributors' list.
• Suspecting and contributing to the editorial progress, including but not limited to the initial screening, and the peer-reviewed process.

Workflow of Section Collections

Manuscripts should be submitted to Open Journal Systems (OJS) and go through a double-blinded peer-reviewed process (refer to Peer Review Policy).

AIGC Policy

For authors:

Researchers using an Artificial Intelligence Generated Content (AIGC) tool/service to directly generate the manuscript text must provide clear disclosures and statements, otherwise it will be considered academic misconduct. The journal allows the use of an AIGC tool/service for text embellishment and automatic sorting of references, but does not recommend the use of the AIGC tool/service in the thinking and concluding sessions of human involvement such as data analysis and interpretation, opinion hypothesis and conclusions, and the AIGC tool/service cannot fulfill the role of a textual author. If any part of the manuscript was written using an AIGC tool/service, it must be described openly, transparently, and in detail in the Methods or Acknowledgments section, for example:

"In the preparation of this work, the authors used the [name of the specific AIGC tool/service] to [purpose of use: e.g., literature research/text embellishment, etc.]. After using this tool/service, the authors reviewed and edited the content as needed, and take full responsibility for the content of the publication."

For Reviewers:

Reviewers are required to disclose whether any artificial intelligence (AI) tools were utilized in the preparation of their review reports. This disclosure should be clearly indicated as a note within the reports themselves.

Units of Measurement

Cardiac and Cardiovascular Research adopts and follows the rules of International System of Units (SI) for physical quantities and units of measurement. For example:

• Quantities including time, length, mass, electric current, etc., should be written as s (second), m (metre), kg (kilogram), A (ampere) after metric numbers.
• Adopt unified format for the same unit of measurement.

Research Data Policy

According to the data and reproducibility of COPE, APACSCI encourages authors to share associated data, code, and materials, register clinical trials, and use standardized guidelines to achieve greater transparency, replicability, and trust in scientific findings. Thus, authors are encouraged to deposit datasets in a data repository; the premise is that this data is not suitable for submission as online supplementary files. Authors who have deposited raw data in community database repositories are encouraged to include a data availability statement in their manuscript. The statement should provide information about the availability of the research data and any limitations or conditions associated with accessing the data, except for reasonable controls related to human privacy or biosecurity. Reusing scientific data can offer great potential for further scientific and economic development.

• Data sharing

For data shared, the  FAIR Data Principles should be followed, which guides that (meta)data are assigned a globally unique and eternally persistent identifier. Authors should cite the correct sources. Collaborative practices should be implemented across journals and institutions to monitor and ensure the scientific validity and credibility of overall research practices. Authors are encouraged to prioritize the use of original data from their study and provide supporting data such as accessible data sources as early as possible.

Regarding data involving confidentiality/privacy/personal privacy, etc., authors are advised to do their best to hide identifiable sensitive information and to share data in strict accordance with mandatory guidelines for the discipline.

According to the guidelines of COPE regarding unpublished data, the journal will address concerns to the data provider regarding the scientific rigor of an unpublished dataset. The journal will contact the corresponding author, and request comments on the concerns, supporting documentation as needed, and information about any other affected content. Following the guidelines regarding published data, if there is a manuscript associated with a published dataset whose scientific rigor is in doubt, the journal will contact any implicated journals that have published results from the suspicious dataset, summarizing the issue and actions taken to date. Authors must respond with a satisfactory update. If the issues are major or impact the conclusions of the manuscript, the author(s) should withdraw the manuscript or the journal will reject the submission.

• Data citation

Authors are encouraged to cite any datasets deposited in external repositories mentioned in their manuscript in the references. For previously published datasets, authors should cite both the published research article and the source of the dataset itself. Journal editorial staff will check and enforce proper data citation before publication.

Data citations should include the minimum information recommended by DataCite:

1)      Author(s)

2)      Year of publication/release

3)      Title

4)      Publisher/repository or archive name

5)      Persistent identifier (e.g., DOI)

• Data repository

Authors are encouraged to deposit their datasets in the relevant community dataset repository, or a general dataset repository (including any generalist data repository provided by a university, funder or institution for its affiliated researchers) that aligns with the specifications and requirements of their discipline could be selected. The publisher recommends that authors select a repository with a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) to ensure that the referenced dataset can be linked to consistently.

Authors could explore online resources for lists of registered data repositories through FAIRsharing.org and re3data.org.

Here are some examples of generalized dataset repositories:

• Open Science Framework
• Dryad Digital Repository
• Figshare
• Harvard Dataverse
• Zenodo
• Science Data Bank

Clinical Trials Registration

The Journal complies with the standards of WHO ICPRP and ICMJE regarding to clinical trial registry. According to the WHO ICPRP and ICMJE, a clinical trial is any research study that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate the effects on health outcomes. Clinical trials may also be referred to as interventional trials. Interventions include but are not restricted to drugs, cells and other biological products, surgical procedures, radiologic procedures, devices, behavioural treatments, process-of-care changes, preventive care, etc. This definition includes Phase I to Phase IV trials.

The Journal requires that all research protocols involving a first clinical trial be registered in a public clinical trial registry (except those that have already been published). WHO regards trial registration as the publication of an  internationally-agreed set of information about the design, conduct and administration of clinical trials. This requirement is not only conducive to increasing the transparency of clinical trial information and reducing publication bias, but also conducive to guaranteeing the quality of clinical trials, increasing the standardization of the trial process and the credibility of the test results.

Authors whose manuscript involve clinical trials, should demonstrate the trial registry information in a cover letter, such as the name of trial registry, and the unique ID number assigned by the Primary Registry to this trial. Meanwhile, authors also should mention the trial registry information at the "Materials and Methods" section with appropriate references. Secondary data analyses of primary (parent) clinical trials should not be registered as separate clinical trials, but instead should reference the trial registration number of the primary trial.

Some primary registers meeting the specific criteria of WHO Registry Network and the requirements of the ICMJE, include International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP), ClinicalTrials.gov.