General recommendations

“Cirugía Cardiovascular” is the official Journal of the Spanish Society of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery (SECTCV). It will consider the publication of original work related to all aspects of cardiovascular disease and especially its surgical treatment.

“Cirugía Cardiovascular” will regularly include editorials, in-depth review papers, original articles, brief reports, images in thoracic and cardiovascular surgery and letters to the Editor.

The editorials and in-depth review papers will be submitted to the request of the Editor-in-Chief and Associate Editor and/or the Editorial Board. All articles will undergo peer review.

“Cirugía Cardiovascular” will publish those original papers presented at the Biennial National Congress of the SECTCV after peer review. Other papers presented at different national meetings like regional congresses will also undergo peer review.

The original articles accepted for publication will become permanent property of the SECTCV and they will not be reproduced, in part or full, by any means without permission of the SECTCV. No papers published earlier will be accepted. No papers undergoing review simultaneously at another journal will be accepted.

All the originals will be submitted to: Editor-in-Chief, Sociedad Espanola de Cirugia Toracica y Cardiovascular. c/Principe de Vergara 211, esc. Izq., puerta E – 28002 MADRID (Spain) or by e-mail to the Secretaria de la SECTCV: secretario@seccv.es.

The original work submitted will belong to any of the following categories:

Original articles: They will refer to the description of clinical, experimental or technical research that will contribute to increase the knowledge on medical and surgical problems allowing the reader to repeat the observations of the authors and evaluate their conclusions. A maximum of 5000 words, 25 references, 8 figures and 8 tables will be acceptable.

Review papers: They will be in-depth reviews where available published information on specific medical and surgical problems will be analyzed, completed with personal experiences from the authors. A maximum of 5000 words will be accepted. The number of references is free.

Brief case reports: Highly interesting or infrequent cases that represent an important contribution to a given subject will be considered. A maximum of 2500 words, 4 figures and 4 tables will be accepted.

Images in Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery: All types of figures will be accepted. There will be high-quality, black and white pictures (intraoperative, diagnostic imaging, histology,…) summarizing interesting or infrequent cases that will be used for teaching through imaging. There will be responsibility of the Editor-in-Chief. A maximum of 2 pictures will be accepted. The text will not be longer than 100 words. A maximum of 2 references will eventually be acceptable.

Letters to the Editor: This section will collect comments related to original work recently published in the Journal. No more than 1000 words, 2 figures and tables will be acceptable.

The Editorial Board will decide in which of the abovementioned categories the originals will be included although the wish of the authors will be considered. The Editorial Board will eventually decide if an original article has interest enough to deserve an invited comment. If that would be so, the article will be submitted to designated specialists for comment and all be then be published jointly in the same issue of the Journal.

The originals received at the Editorial Office, at the headquarters of the SECTCV will undergo peer review. After review, the final decision of the reviewers will be notified to the authors for their perusal.

The first author will receive 10 free reprints of the article. If a larger quantity is requested, the author will report to the Editor-in-Chief to be ordered following acceptance of the corresponding budget.

Presentation and structure of the articles

Three copies of the original manuscript together with three sets of the figures and tables will be submitted. The originals will be typed double-spaced with 3-cm margins. The pages will be numbered starting from the front page with the name of the first author in the upper left corner. The electronic version in Word format will also be submitted via e-mail or on a CD-rom.

The work has to be structured as follows: Front page, Spanish abstract, English abstract, Text, Reference list, Legends, Tables and Figures.

First page or front page: The following will be presented in order: Title in Spanish, Title in English, Name and family name of all authors. Name of the Departmen(s) and Institution(s) where the work has been performed. Postal and e-mail addresses of the corresponding author, telephone and fax numbers. The word count will include from the introduction until the end of the text.
Structured abstract: It will be easy to understand without reading the full article. The essential points treated in the article will be included. It will not include data not cited in the text. Neither references nor abbreviations will be used. The Spanish and English abstracts will not be longer than 250 words for original articles and reviews and 150 for brief reports. The structure will clearly indicate the aim of the study, material and methods, results, discussion and conclusion.

Key words: A maximum of five (5) key words that will help to identify the contents of the work to be included in national and international biomedical databases will be shown at the end of both the Spanish and English abstracts.

Text: The manuscripts will be organized in the following sections: introduction, material and methods, results, discussion and conclusions. Each section must be clearly named. Reviews, brief reports and letters to the Editor may be organized in a different format.

In the introduction, the authors will briefly and clearly explain the aim of the work. An excess of references will be avoided and no review of the work will be performed.

In the material and methods section, the way in which the research has been performed, its duration, the characteristics of the study series, selection criteria and techniques employed will be explained. Research has to be performed following the principles of the declaration of Helsinki of 1975, later updated by the American Society of Physiology in 1981, without using names, initials or hospital record numbers that may allow to identify patients.

The results must describe the observations made with the material and methods. These data can be shown in the text or in the form of figures and tables.

In the discussion the author will offer their own opinions on the subject. They should outline the meaning and practical application of the results, the considerations on a possible inconsistency of the methodology employed and the reasons why the results may be valid, the relations with similar publications and the comparison between the areas of agreement and disagreement. Finally they have to show the indications for future research.

The conclusions will show in a brief and clear manner the opinion of the authors once the results and discussion have been strictly evaluated.

No more than 6 abbreviations must be used. They have to be adequately described the first time they appear in the text. The abbreviations of measurement units are those recommended in: Uniform requirements for submission of originals to biomedical journals, N Engl J Med 1991; 324:424-428.

References: All the references will be numbered and classified by order of appearance in the text. All will be indicated in the text with an Arabic numeral. No author mentioned in the references will be cited. Personal communications are not considered references and therefore they will not be used as such. They will be included in the text among brackets. In reference to other articles accepted but still to be published at another journal, the name of the journal will be cited followed by “in press”.

There are no limits for the number of references of review and special articles. For original articles the maximum number of references will be limited to 25. For brief communications and reports a maximum of 12 references will be accepted. No more than 2 references may be accepted in the case of the images in thoracic and cardiovascular surgery.

The references will be cited according to the following examples:

From journal articles: The family name and the initials of all authors if the list of authors is six or less; if they are seven or more, only the name and initials of the first three followed by the roman abbreviation “et al.”. Thereafter, the title of the work in the original language according to the Index Medicus, the year of publication, the volume and the first and last page of the article will be shown.
Examples: Shearn DL, Brent BN. Coronary artery bypass surgery in patients with left ventricular dysfunction. Am J Med 1986; 80:405-411.
Moulton AL, Brenner JL, Roberts G et al. Subclavian flap repair of the coarctation of the aorta in neonates. J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 1984; 87:220-235.

From books: name of the author(s), title of the book, city, publishing company and year of publication.
Example: Hopkins RA. Cardiac reconstructions with allograft valves. New York, Springer-Verlag Inc, New York, 1989.

From chapter in books: name of the author(s), title of the chapter in the original language, names and initials of the editor(s), title of the book, city, publishing company, year of the publication and first and last pages of the chapter.
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.

The figures will be carefully selected. They will be of high quality. Three copies of each, size 13x18 cm will be provided. They can also be submitted in digital electronic format, via e-mail or through Zip or CD in EPS, JPEG or TIF Photoshop compatible. The minimal resolution and size will be 300 pixels/inch and 10 cm.

It is very important that the quality of the figures is high to allow for high-quality reproduction. Low-quality figures may be rejected at the consideration of the Editorial Board.

In the back of the picture, the adequate positioning of it will be clearly marked through an adhesive tape with an arrow that will show the upper side. The number and title of the picture will also be marked. Special details will be marked with arrows.
When a colour reproduction is desired, the author has to borne the cost of printing, which is estimated in a minimum of 600 euros per page.

The graphs will have the same size as the figures; however it is advisable that they will have a size enough to be easily read without difficulties when the size is to be reduced. Black tracing will be used and no manual writing will be allowed. In the back of the graphs the details will be shown as the pictures as they have to be numbered in the same way.

The graphs and drawings, in digital format, will be generated with graph software like Freehand or Illustrator. Corel Draw generated graphs will not be accepted.

The Legends will be shown in a separate sheet.

The Tables will be presented in separate sheets that will include: The number of the table in Arabic numerals according to its appearance in the text, its title in the upper part. Every sheet will show only one table. They must be clear, self-explanatory and the data shown in them should not appear in the text or in another figure. Initials and abbreviations will be described at the bottom of the page.

Those original articles that do not comply with the instructions for authors will be returned to their authors for immediate modifications after review by members of the Editorial Board. The Editorial Board reserves the right to introduce modifications of the originals without altering the meaning of them, to accommodate to the current instructions for publication.