Aims and Scope

Thank you for your interests in International Journal of Surgical Wound Care, a
peer-reviewed, open access English Journal featuring the latest, high-quality research in surgical wound treatment and science published in the field of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. The Journal includes original articles, reviews, brief communications, and case reports.
Please read the guide for authors below for information on preparing and submitting your manuscript.

Authorship Qualification

An article submitted to International Journal of Surgical Wound Care for publication must be original, unpublished, and not under consideration for publication while under review by this Journal. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all the authors have read and approved the manuscript for publication.

Criteria for Review and Acceptance

Upon submission, the Editor-in-Chief will determine if the manuscript meets the criteria for originality, quality, and relevance to the Journal’s readers. If the manuscript satisfies these criteria, it will be reviewed in a single-blind peer review process by two reviewers and an editor. The Editorial Board of the Journal reserves the right to accept or refuse any materials submitted for publication.
All reviewers and editors are asked to report any potential conflicts of interest, and when those exist the manuscript is reassigned to a different editor or reviewer. In case the Editor-in-Chief has a conflict of interest, authorities shall be delegated to the Editorial Board members.

Ethics

Experimental studies on animals must include a statement that the studies meet appropriate ethical standards of the responsible committee. When reporting experiments on human subjects, indicate whether the procedures followed were in accord with the 1975 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments and to the requirements of any other relevant institutional or local ethical committees. When reporting experiments on animals, indicate whether the institutional, national or other relevant laws and guidelines for the human treatment of laboratory animals were followed. Editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with the Journal’s ethical standards. The authors are responsible when any faulty statement is disclosed.

Patient Consent

Patients’ right to privacy must be safeguarded at all times. Information that may potentially identify the patient, whether in text form, photographs, genealogical data, etc. must be excluded from the manuscript unless it is essential for scientific reasons and the patients or their legal guardians have given their written informed consent for its use. Photographic details that may identify a patient should also be omitted. However, data pertaining to the patient should never be falsified or altered to achieve anonymity. The patient’s written informed consent for the use of private information should always be obtained whenever there is any doubt.

Authorship

Individuals designated as the authors of the manuscript must qualify for authorship. To qualify, an author must contribute sufficiently to the content of the work and be capable of taking responsibility publicly for the contribution. Specifically, authorship is recognized only when an individual makes substantial contributions to the 1) conception and design of the work and the acquisition, analysis or interpretation of the data; 2) drafting of the manuscript or critically revising its intellectual content; and 3) giving final approval of the version to be submitted for publication. Individuals who fail to meet the three criteria outlined above should not be listed as authors but may be included in the Acknowledgements section.

Conflict of Interest

The authors are obligated to disclose all relationships, financial or otherwise, which have the potential to influence their work or cause the perception of a bias.
The corresponding author is responsible for declaring any conflict of interest in the study being submitting for publication. If there are no conflicts of interest, the author(s) must declare so by writing NONE.

Funding Sources

The authors are obligated to disclose all sources of funding for their work, including study grants, research contracts, honoraria, etc. Each funding source should be described with the name of the individual or research group receiving the support.

Advertising Policy

All advertisements and commercially sponsored publications are independent from editorial decisions.

Retraction

If authors wish to retract or correct their manuscript, they are to send a request detailing the situation/reasons to the Editorial Office by email. The Editor-in-Chief then evaluates the reasons and decides how to address the issue.

ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID)

ORCID is a digital identification system enabling authors to be linked to their contributions by providing each registrant with a unique digital identification code. Authors are encouraged to register with ORCID and to submit their ID number when submitting to this Journal. For details, see: https://orcid.org/

I. Manuscript Preparation

1. Style and Preparation Guidelines

The manuscript should be written in correct, modern, scientific American English. For more information on style, refer to The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition or the AMA Manual of Style. For correct spellings, refer to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, 2016 edition. Authors whose first language is not English are strongly advised to have their manuscript copy-edited by a professional editing service.

2. Writing the Manuscript

The manuscript should be written using word-processing software such as Microsoft Word, set to double space, in a standard 12 pt. font (e.g., Times New Roman, Arial or Century). Tables and legends for tables and figures should be prepared in the same manner. Figures, including illustrations, photographs, diagrams, etc., should be submitted in any of the following formats with minimum 300 dpi resolution: jpeg, tif, gif, eps. Multi-panel figures should be submitted as a single file that contains all parts of the figure.
The manuscript should be labeled with line numbers and page numbers at the bottom of the page.

3. Abbreviations

Abbreviations should not be used in the abstract. On its first occurrence in the text, the term to be abbreviated should be written in full and followed by its abbreviation in parentheses.

4. Brand Names

The brand name of medications may be mentioned only once together with the manufacturer’s information in parentheses in the main text after the first mention of the generic name. Thereafter, the generic name only may be used.

5. Units

All units of measurement should conform to the International System of Units (SI). See: https://www.bipm.org/en/measurement-units/

6. Manuscript Categories

Original Article
Word limit: 3,000
Abstract: 250 words (structured), maximum 5 key words
Figures/tables: Maximum 10
References: Maximum 40
The manuscript includes the following sections: 1) Title Page; 2) Abstract and Key Words; 3) Main Text, including the Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion; 4) Acknowledgements; 5) COI Statement; 6) References; 7) Supplementary Information(if any); 8) Figure Legends; 9) Tables (including titles and footnotes); 10) Figures.
The abstract should contain four sections, including Background, Methods, Results, and Conclusions and be followed by a list of up to five key words. Footnotes should not be used within the abstract or the main text.

Review Article
Word limit: 6,000
Abstract: 250 words (structured), maximum 5 key words
Figures/tables: Maximum 20
References: Maximum 100
The Review Article includes 1) Title Page; 2) Abstract and Key Words; 3) Main Text; 4) Acknowledgements; 5) COI Statement; 6) References; 7) Figure Legends; 8) Tables (including titles and footnotes); 9) Figures.

Brief Communication
Word limit: 1,200
Abstract: 200 words (unstructured), maximum 5 key words
Figures/tables: Maximum 5
References: Maximum 10
The Brief Communication discusses a clinical finding such as an unusual or novel treatment outcome and may include a brief review of current literature relevant to the topic. A Brief Communication may also briefly summarize current research findings.
The manuscript includes the sections in the following order: 1) Title Page; 2) Abstract and Key Words; 3) Main Text; 4) Acknowledgements; 5) COI Statement; 6) References; 7) Supplementary Information (if any); 8) Figure Legends; 9) Tables (including titles and footnotes); and 10) Figures.
The abstract is unstructured.
Footnotes should not be used within the abstract or the main text.

Case Report
Word limit: 2,000
Abstract: 200 words (unstructured), maximum 5 key words
Figures/tables: Maximum 10
References: Maximum 25
The case report discusses the clinical findings common to no more than five patients.
The manuscript contains the following parts: 1) Title Page; 2) Abstract and Key Words; 3) Main Text, including the Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusions; 4) Acknowledgements; 5) COI statement; 6) References; 7) Supplementary Information (if any); 8) Figure Legends; 9) Tables (including titles and footnotes); and 10) Figures.
The abstract is unstructured.
Footnotes should not be used within the abstract or the main text.

7. Manuscript Parts and its Order

3) Main Text
The main text should be divided into the following subsections: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion.

4) Acknowledgements
The authors should acknowledge all sources of funding for their study. If any financial support was received in the form of a grant, research contract or an honorarium, the name of the recipient (individual or group) must be indicated. Any professional assistance rendered by a third party, including individuals and institutions, in conducting the study, writing the manuscript or preparing it for publication should be duly acknowledged in the Acknowledgements.

5) References
All references should follow the Vancouver Style format and be numbered in the reference section in the order in which they appear in the main text. Note that the authors are responsible for the accuracy of the references. Cite the names of all authors when there are six or fewer; when seven or more, list the first three followed by et al. Citations of unpublished studies or unofficial communications should be made within the main text in parentheses and not listed in the reference section.
See the following examples of references:

6) Tables
Tables accompanying the manuscript should be submitted in an editable format. The data contained in the tables should not duplicate information contained in the main text. The title should be understandable without reference to the text. All columns should carry concise headings describing the data therein. Details should be put in footnotes.

7) Figures
Each figure should be accompanied by a title and concise legend, and should be supplied as a separate file, with the figure number incorporated in the file name. The figure and its legend should be understandable without reference to the main text. The authors are advised to submit figures of the highest quality or resolution possible. Multi-panel figures (figures with parts a, b, c, d, etc.) should be submitted as a single file that contains all parts of the figure. For submission, low-resolution figures should be uploaded. Upon acceptance of the article, high-resolution figures (at least 300 d.p.i.) should be uploaded.

8) Figure Legends
Figure legends should be included as part of the main text in the preparation of the manuscript.

II. Submitting Your Manuscript

Cover letter
A cover letter should be submitted with each manuscript. The cover letter must contain the following information:

• Authorship statement detailing each author’s contribution　
• A statement of permission by all the authors to publish the manuscript
• A statement that the work has not been previously published (neither for an abstract for submission to conferences and similar events) nor is under consideration for publication with another Journal

Furthermore, if any materials derived from another source have been included in the manuscript, the authors are responsible for submitting a letter of permission from the copyright holder for its use.

Online Submission

Authors should submit their manuscripts to International journal of Surgical Wound Care online.
When you will submit your manuscript, please post it through the peer-review system (Editorial Manager).
In addition, please register as a user when posting for the first time.

Peer-review system URL
　https://www.editorialmanager.com/ijswc/default1.aspx

III. Copyright Transfer

Authors will be asked to transfer copyright of their articles to Japan Society for Surgical Wound Care.

IV. Post Publication of Article PDF for Authors

Following the acceptance of a manuscript for publication, the author(s) will be sent a PDF copy of the article.

V. Publication Charges

VI. Contact

International Journal of Surgical Wound Care, Editorial Office
c/o Shunkosha Inc.
Shinjuku Lambdax Building 9F, 2-4-12, Ohkubo, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 169-0072, Japan
TEL: +81-3-6273-8202
FAX: +81-3-5291-2177
E-MAIL: jsswc-ijswc@shunkosha.com