Instructions for authors

Cirugía Cardiovascular (Cir Cardiov) is the official Journal of the Sociedad Española de Cirugía Torácica Cardiovascular (Spanish Society of Thoracic-Cardiovascular Surgery) (SECTCV). 
The mission of the Spanish Society of Thoracic-Cardiovascular Surgery (SECTCV) is to ensure quality in the exercise of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery by means of training, promoting research, the development and introduction of standards and guidelines, and its influence on health policies at a national level. 
The Journal publishes articles on all aspects related to cardiovascular diseases, particularly when their treatment involves surgery. 
It regularly includes articles on clinical and basic research, reviews and cardiovascular registries, clinical cases and letters to the editor. 
The online edition of Cirugía Cardiovascular is available at Cirugia Cardiovascular

All manuscripts will be adapted to the publication guidelines. It is understood that the author for correspondence of the publication is responsible for the regulations and that the rest of the authors know, participate and agree with the contents of the manuscript. The manuscript should be within the framework of any of the following publishing forms:
• Editorial
• Original articles 
• Reviews
• Clinical Cases (cases, images, short communications)
• Registries 
• Letters to the Editor

Original articles
• Maximum length of 5,000 words, including from the first page to the last page, and only excluding those of the Tables. 
• Consists of 2 documents: first page and manuscript.

First page:
• Full title of the work (less than 150 characters) in Spanish and in English.
• Name and surname of the authors in this order: first name, initial of second name, if applicable, followed by (second) surname. The second surname could be included separated by a hyphen.
• Place of employment (Department, Institution, city and country), and funding source, if applicable.
• Full postal address of the author for correspondence, as well as telephone, fax and e-mail address. 
• The total number of words of the manuscript (excluding only the Tables).

Manuscript follows this order: a) a structured abstract and key words in Spanish; b) a structured abstract and key words in English; c) an Abbreviations table in Spanish and in English; d) the text; e) bibliography; f) figure footnotes; g) tables (optional), h) figures (optional), and additional material, which has to be included in the internet version (optional).

Structured abstract:
• The Abstract, with a maximum length of 250 words, is structured into 4 sections: a) Introduction and objectives; b) Methods; c) Results, and d) Conclusions.
• It should be understandable by itself and not contain literature references or abbreviations (except those corresponding to measurement units). 
• At the end, include between 5 and 7 keywords in Spanish and in English. These should preferably be selected from the list published by the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) of the National Library of Medicine. Available at: http://www. nlm.nih. gov/mesh/meshhome.html
• It will then include a translation of the Abstract and Keywords in English, with an identical structure.

Text:
• It has the following sections: a) Introduction; b) Methods; c) Results; d) Discussion, and e) Conclusions, each one of them suitably headed. Use subsection subtitles to suitably organise each of the sections. 
• A maximum of 6 abbreviations will be used, that have been suitably explained in a Table. The translation of this Table into English must be submitted.
• The acknowledgments appear at the end of the text.

Bibliography:
• The literature references, to a maximum number of 40, are cited in numerical order, in superscript, corresponding to their order of appearance in the text.
• The literature references do not include personal communications, manuscripts or any unpublished data. All of these, however, may be included, within parentheses, within the text.
• Abstracts of less than 2 years old are cited, identifying them with: [abstract], placed after the title.
• For references to medical journals, the same abbreviations that appear in the Index Medicus are used
• The Bibliography will be submitted as standard text, never as footnotes. Specific bibliographic management program codes will not be accepted.
• The bibliography will follow the Vancouver guidelines
• Medical journal: List all the authors. If the number of authors is greater than six, the first six will be included, adding the Latin phrase et al. Example: Silva J, Blanco E, Maroto LC, Cobiella J, Carnero M, Villagrán E, et al. Resección cuadrangular frente al uso de neocuerdas en la reparación del velo posterior mitral. Resultados clínicos y ecocardiográficos. Cir Cardiov. 2012;19(1): 39-46.
• Book chapters: Authors, chapter title, Editors, book title, city, Publisher, and pages. Example: Hopkins RA. Cardiac reconstructions with allograft valves. New York, Springer-Verlag New York inc., 1989, pp 22-23.
• Book. Cite the specific pages. Example: Braimbridge MV. Myocardial protection for coronary artery surgery. Wheatley DJ, Ed. Surgery of Coronary Artery Disease. London, Chapman and Hall Ltd., 1986;87:287-312.
• Material in electronic format. Example: Jurgen Martin, Christoph Benk. Blood cardioplegia. Multimedia Manual of Cardiothoracic Surgery. Available at: here

Figures:
• The Figures, to a maximum number of 6, corresponding to graphs and illustrations are preferably submitted in TIFF or JPEG format, with a resolution not less than 400 dpi and using black colour for lines and text. These are in order with Arabic numerals corresponding to their order of appearance in the text.
• The graphs, symbols, letters, etc., are of sufficient size to be able be clearly identified on being reduced. The special details will be shown with arrows, using maximum contrast plotting as regards the Figure for these and for any other type of symbols.
• The Figure footnotes are included on a separate sheet. At the end, the abbreviations used are identified, in alphabetic order.
• The Figures do not contain data that enables to determine where the work was done or the identity of the patient. Photographs of persons must be made in such a way that they are not identifiable, or the consent for their use by the person photographed will be included.
• The reproduction of the Figures to colour will be incur no additional cost, although the final decision on the reproduction form will adjusted to editorial needs.

Tables:

The Tables, to a maximum number of 6, are numbered with Arabic numerals in accordance with their order of appearance in the text. Each Table will be written double spaced on a separate sheet. They include a title at the top, and the abbreviations used will be described in alphabetical order at the foot of each Table.
• The content is self-explanatory and the data that they include do not appear in the text or in the Figures.

Clinical cases (cases, images, short communications):
Works that contain one or several pieces of surgical information, or clinical cases that due to their infrequency or interest make an important contribution to the knowledge of a topic. Also Images in cardiovascular and thoracic surgery.
 
• It consists of 2 documents: first page and manuscript. 
• Manuscript: with a maximum length of 2,500 words and 10 literature references, as well as Tables and Figures, that must not exceed 8 in total. 
• The first page: Title (Spanish and English), the authors (a maximum of 6), place of employment, and address. Tables and Figures are specified in accordance with the guidelines already described for Original Articles. 
• A non-structured Abstract with a maximum length of 250 words, that includes a translation into English, as well as the Keywords in English, in accordance with the guidelines already described for Original Articles. Images in cardiovascular and thoracic surgery 
• All types of images will be accepted, as long as they are of high quality, in colour or in black and white (intra-operative, imaging diagnostics, histopathology…), that summarise interesting, uncommon cases, or from which some lesson may be learnt through the image. 
• All the symbols contained in the images will be appropriately explained in the text. 
• The complementary educational material may be attached to the article following the guidelines described later in the corresponding section. 
• The reproduction of the Figures to colour will incur no additional cost, although the final decision on the reproduction form will adjusted to editorial needs.

Letters to the Editor
•Correspondence on editorial topics or related to articles published in the Journal should be submitted to this section. Only letters received within 8 weeks after the publication of the article to which it refers and that do not contain original data will be accepted for evaluation.
• The title (Spanish and English), the authors (a maximum of 4), place of employment, and address. The Figures, are specified in accordance with the guidelines already described for Original Articles.
• It will have a maximum length of 1,000 words.
• It may contain a maximum of 2 Figures and 2 Tables, in accordance with the guidelines already described for Original Articles.

Reviews and Editorials
•At the request of the Journal Editorial Committee, or at the initiative of the author, Cirugía Cardiovascular publish articles of authors with recognised prestige on specific topics of cardiovascular interest or education. The presentation of the document will be:
• The first page: Full title (less than 150 characters) in Spanish and in English.
• Name and surname of the authors in this order: first name, initial of second name, if applicable, followed by (second) surname. Place of employment (Department, Institution, city and country), and funding source, if applicable. Full postal address of the author for correspondence, as well as telephone and e-mail address.
• Manuscript: it will not have a maximum number of words or a structured order, and will include the necessary Tables and Figures.

Additional material on the web
•The Journal of Cirugía Cardiovascular accepts the submission of additional electronic material to support and improve the presentation of their scientific research. However, only additional electronic material directly related to the contents of the article will be considered for publication, and its final acceptance will be at the discretion of the Editor. The additional material accepted will not be translated and will be published electronically in the same format as it is received.
•To ensure that your material has the appropriate format, we recommend the following: 
the text in Word format and a maximum size of 500 Kb
the image in JPG format, a maximum of 10 MB
in MP3 audio format, a maximum of 10 MB
and video with MPG format, and a maximum of 80 MB.
•The authors should submit the material in electronic format via the Elsevier editorial EES as a multimedia file together with the article, and provide a concise and descriptive title for each file. Similarly, this type of material must fulfil all the requirements general ethic responsibilities described in these Guidelines.

You can send your manuscript at http://ees.elsevier.com/circv. Electronic files of the manuscript contents must be uploaded at that Web site and the onscreen steps should be followed to submit the manuscript to the Editorial Office. 

Cirugía Cardiovascular accepts works written in English or Spanish.

You can use this list to carry out a final check of your submission before you send it to the journal for review. Please check the relevant section in this Guide for Authors for more details.
Ensure that the following items are present:
One author has been designated as the corresponding author with contact details:
- E-mail address
- Full postal address
All necessary files have been uploaded:
Manuscript:
- Include keywords
- All figures (include relevant captions)
- All tables (including titles, description, footnotes)
- Ensure all figure and table citations in the text match the files provided
- Indicate clearly if color should be used for any figures in print
Graphical Abstracts / Highlights files (where applicable)
Supplemental files (where applicable)
Further considerations
- Manuscript has been 'spell checked' and 'grammar checked'
- All references mentioned in the Reference List are cited in the text, and vice versa
-Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Internet)
- A competing interests statement is provided, even if the authors have no competing interests to declare
- Journal policies detailed in this guide have been reviewed
- Referee suggestions and contact details provided, based on journal requirements

For further information, visit our Support Center.

Please see our information pages on Ethics in publishing and Ethical guidelines for journal publication.

If the work involves the use of human subjects, the author should ensure that the work described has been carried out in accordance with The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for experiments involving humans. The manuscript should be in line with the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals and aim for the inclusion of representative human populations (sex, age and ethnicity) as per those recommendations. The terms sex and gender should be used correctly.

Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects. The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed.

All animal experiments should comply with the ARRIVE guidelines and should be carried out in accordance with the U.K. Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act, 1986 and associated guidelines, EU Directive 2010/63/EU for animal experiments, or the National Institutes of Health guide for the care and use of Laboratory animals (NIH Publications No. 8023, revised 1978) and the authors should clearly indicate in the manuscript that such guidelines have been followed. The sex of animals must be indicated, and where appropriate, the influence (or association) of sex on the results of the study.

Studies on patients or volunteers require ethics committee approval and informed consent, which should be documented in the paper.

If photographs or patient data are reproduced, these should not be identifying the subject. Even so, the authors must declare, in the text of the manuscript (in a section entitled Ethical Considerations included in Material and Methods, or at the end of the article in Clinical Cases), that the written informed consent of the patient or the parent or tutor for the publication of the article.

Written consents must be retained by the author but copies should not be provided to the journal. Only if specifically requested by the journal in exceptional circumstances (for example if a legal issue arises) the author must provide copies of the consents or evidence that such consents have been obtained. For more information, please review the Elsevier Policy on the Use of Images or Personal Information of Patients or other Individuals.

Unless you have written permission from the patient (or, where applicable, the next of kin), the personal details of any patient included in any part of the article and in any supplementary materials (including all illustrations and videos) must be removed before submission.

All authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. Examples of potential competing interests include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. Authors must disclose any interests in two places: 1. A summary declaration of interest statement in the title page file (if double-blind) or the manuscript file (if single-blind). If there are no interests to declare then please state this: 'Declarations of interest: none'. This summary statement will be ultimately published if the article is accepted. 2. Detailed disclosures as part of a separate Declaration of Interest form, which forms part of the journal's official records. It is important for potential interests to be declared in both places and that the information matches. More information.

Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis, see 'Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication' section of our ethics policy for more information), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, including electronically without the written consent of the copyright-holder. To verify originality, your article may be checked by the originality detection service Crossref Similarity Check.

All authors should have made substantial contributions to all of the following: (1) the conception and design of the study, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, (3) final approval of the version to be submitted.

Authors are expected to consider carefully the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript and provide the definitive list of authors at the time of the original submission. Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made only before the manuscript has been accepted and only if approved by the journal Editor. To request such a change, the Editor must receive the following from the corresponding author: (a) the reason for the change in author list and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed.
Only in exceptional circumstances will the Editor consider the addition, deletion or rearrangement of authors after the manuscript has been accepted. While the Editor considers the request, publication of the manuscript will be suspended. If the manuscript has already been published in an online issue, any requests approved by the Editor will result in a corrigendum.

Randomized controlled trials should be presented according to the CONSORT guidelines. At manuscript submission, authors must provide the CONSORT checklist accompanied by a flow diagram that illustrates the progress of patients through the trial, including recruitment, enrollment, randomization, withdrawal and completion, and a detailed description of the randomization procedure. The CONSORT checklist and template flow diagram are available online.

Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' (see more information on this). An e-mail will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript together with a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' form or a link to the online version of this agreement.

Author rights
As an author you (or your employer or institution) have certain rights to reuse your work. More information.

Find out how you can share your research published in Elsevier journals.

You are requested to identify who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article and to briefly describe the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the article for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement then this should be stated.

This is an open access journal: all articles will be immediately and permanently free for everyone to read and download. To provide open access, this journal has an open access fee (also known as an article publishing charge APC). This fee is not payable by the author as publishing costs are covered by the society. Permitted third party (re)use is defined by the following Creative Commons user licenses:

Researcher Academy is a free e-learning platform designed to support early and mid-career researchers throughout their research journey. The "Learn" environment at Researcher Academy offers several interactive modules, webinars, downloadable guides and resources to guide you through the process of writing for research and going through peer review. Feel free to use these free resources to improve your submission and navigate the publication process with ease.

Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these). Authors who feel their English language manuscript may require editing to eliminate possible grammatical or spelling errors and to conform to correct scientific English may wish to use the English Language Editing service available from Elsevier's Author Services.

This journal operates a double blind review process. All contributions will be initially assessed by the editor for suitability for the journal. Papers deemed suitable are then typically sent to a minimum of two independent expert reviewers to assess the scientific quality of the paper. The Editor is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of articles. The Editor's decision is final.

To avoid possible conflicts of interest, the editors of the journal undertake not to intervene in the evaluation of those manuscripts signed by other members of the Editorial Board or researchers with whom they have had a personal or professional relationship in the past or in the present.

More information on types of peer review.

This journal uses double-anonymized review, which means the identities of the authors are concealed from the reviewers, and vice versa. More information is available on our website. To facilitate this, please include the following separately:
Title page (with author details): This should include the title, authors' names affiliations, acknowledgements and any Declaration of Interest statement, and a complete address for the corresponding author including an e-mail address.
Anonymized manuscript (no author details): The main body of the paper (including the references, figures, tables and any acknowledgements) should not include any identifying information, such as the authors' names or affiliations.

It is important that the file be saved in the native format of the word processor used. The text should be in single-column format. Keep the layout of the text as simple as possible. Most formatting codes will be removed and replaced on processing the article. In particular, do not use the word processor's options to justify text or to hyphenate words. However, do use bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts etc. When preparing tables, if you are using a table grid, use only one grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row. If no grid is used, use tabs, not spaces, to align columns. The electronic text should be prepared in a way very similar to that of conventional manuscripts (see also the Guide to Publishing with Elsevier). Note that source files of figures, tables and text graphics will be required whether or not you embed your figures in the text. See also the section on Electronic artwork.
To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the 'spell-check' and 'grammar-check' functions of your word processor.

Although a graphical abstract is optional, its use is encouraged as it draws more attention to the online article. The graphical abstract should summarize the contents of the article in a concise, pictorial form designed to capture the attention of a wide readership. Graphical abstracts should be submitted as a separate file in the online submission system. Image size: Please provide an image with a minimum of 531 × 1328 pixels (h × w) or proportionally more. The image should be readable at a size of 5 × 13 cm using a regular screen resolution of 96 dpi. Preferred file types: TIFF, EPS, PDF or MS Office files. You can view Example Graphical Abstracts on our information site.
Authors can make use of Elsevier's Illustration and Enhancement service to ensure the best presentation of their images and in accordance with all technical requirements: Illustration Service.

Whilst it is accepted that authors sometimes need to manipulate images for clarity, manipulation for purposes of deception or fraud will be seen as scientific ethical abuse and will be dealt with accordingly. For graphical images, this journal is applying the following policy: no specific feature within an image may be enhanced, obscured, moved, removed, or introduced. Adjustments of brightness, contrast, or color balance are acceptable if and as long as they do not obscure or eliminate any information present in the original. Nonlinear adjustments (e.g. changes to gamma settings) must be disclosed in the figure legend.

General points
• Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of your original artwork.
• Embed the used fonts if the application provides that option.
• Aim to use the following fonts in your illustrations: Arial, Courier, Times New Roman, Symbol, or use fonts that look similar.
• Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text.
• Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files.
• Provide captions to illustrations separately.
• Size the illustrations close to the desired dimensions of the published version.
• Submit each illustration as a separate file.
• Ensure that color images are accessible to all, including those with impaired color vision.

A detailed guide on electronic artwork is available.
You are urged to visit this site; some excerpts from the detailed information are given here.

Formats
If your electronic artwork is created in a Microsoft Office application (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) then please supply 'as is' in the native document format.
Regardless of the application used other than Microsoft Office, when your electronic artwork is finalized, please 'Save as' or convert the images to one of the following formats (note the resolution requirements for line drawings, halftones, and line/halftone combinations given below):
EPS (or PDF): Vector drawings, embed all used fonts.
TIFF (or JPEG): Color or grayscale photographs (halftones), keep to a minimum of 300 dpi.
TIFF (or JPEG): Bitmapped (pure black & white pixels) line drawings, keep to a minimum of 1000 dpi.
TIFF (or JPEG): Combinations bitmapped line/half-tone (color or grayscale), keep to a minimum of 500 dpi.
Please do not:
• Supply files that are optimized for screen use (e.g., GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG); these typically have a low number of pixels and limited set of colors;
• Supply files that are too low in resolution;
• Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.

Please make sure that artwork files are in an acceptable format (TIFF (or JPEG), EPS (or PDF) or MS Office files) and with the correct resolution. If, together with your accepted article, you submit usable color figures then Elsevier will ensure, at no additional charge, that these figures will appear in color online (e.g., ScienceDirect and other sites). Further information on the preparation of electronic artwork.

Ensure that each illustration has a caption. Supply captions separately, not attached to the figure. A caption should comprise a brief title (not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used.

Please submit tables as editable text and not as images. Tables can be placed either next to the relevant text in the article, or on separate page(s) at the end. Number tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text and place any table notes below the table body. Be sparing in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in them do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article. Please avoid using vertical rules and shading in table cells.

Journal names should be abbreviated according to the List of Title Word Abbreviations.

Elsevier accepts video material and animation sequences to support and enhance your scientific research. Authors who have video or animation files that they wish to submit with their article are strongly encouraged to include links to these within the body of the article. This can be done in the same way as a figure or table by referring to the video or animation content and noting in the body text where it should be placed. All submitted files should be properly labeled so that they directly relate to the video file's content. In order to ensure that your video or animation material is directly usable, please provide the file in one of our recommended file formats with a preferred maximum size of 150 MB per file, 1 GB in total. Video and animation files supplied will be published online in the electronic version of your article in Elsevier Web products, including ScienceDirect. Please supply 'stills' with your files: you can choose any frame from the video or animation or make a separate image. These will be used instead of standard icons and will personalize the link to your video data. For more detailed instructions please visit our video instruction pages. Note: since video and animation cannot be embedded in the print version of the journal, please provide text for both the electronic and the print version for the portions of the article that refer to this content.

Elsevier encourages and supports authors to share raw data sets underpinning their research publication where appropriate and enables interlinking of articles and data. More information on depositing, sharing and using research data.

This journal encourages and enables you to share data that supports your research publication where appropriate, and enables you to interlink the data with your published articles.  Research data refers to the results of observations or experimentation that validate research findings. To facilitate reproducibility and data reuse, this journal also encourages you to share your software, code, models, algorithms, protocols, methods and other useful materials related to the project.

Below are a number of ways in which you can associate data with your article or make a statement about the availability of your data when submitting your manuscript. If you are sharing data in one of these ways, you are encouraged to cite the data in your manuscript and reference list. Please refer to the "References" section for more information about data citation. For more information on depositing, sharing and using research data and other relevant research materials, visit the research data page.

One set of page proofs (as PDF files) will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author (if we do not have an e-mail address then paper proofs will be sent by post) or a link will be provided in the e-mail so that authors can download the files themselves. To ensure a fast publication process of the article, we kindly ask authors to provide us with their proof corrections within two days. Elsevier now provides authors with PDF proofs which can be annotated; for this you will need to download the free Adobe Reader, version 9 (or higher). Instructions on how to annotate PDF files will accompany the proofs (also given online). The exact system requirements are given at the Adobe site.
If you do not wish to use the PDF annotations function, you may list the corrections (including replies to the Query Form) and return them to Elsevier in an e-mail. Please list your corrections quoting line number. If, for any reason, this is not possible, then mark the corrections and any other comments (including replies to the Query Form) on a printout of your proof and scan the pages and return via e-mail. Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text, tables and figures. Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the Editor. We will do everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately. It is important to ensure that all corrections are sent back to us in one communication: please check carefully before replying, as inclusion of any subsequent corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility.

The corresponding author will be notified and receive a link to the published version of the open access article on ScienceDirect. This link is in the form of an article DOI link which can be shared via email and social networks. For an extra charge, paper offprints can be ordered via the offprint order form which is sent once the article is accepted for publication. Both corresponding and co-authors may order offprints at any time via Elsevier's Author Services.

Visit the Elsevier Support Center to find the answers you need. Here you will find everything from Frequently Asked Questions to ways to get in touch.
You can also check the status of your submitted article or find out when your accepted article will be published.