Instructions to Authors

Editorial, Publication and Peer-review Process
The editorial and publication processes of the journal are established in accordance with the international guidelines. The most important criteria of the manuscripts for publication include originality, scientific quality, and citation potential. The authors should guarantee that the manuscripts have not been previously published and/or are under consideration for publication elsewhere. The scientific and ethical liability of the manuscripts belongs to the authors and the authors agree to transfer the commercial rights to Baþakþehir Çam and Sakura City Hospital if the article is accepted for publication. Authors are responsible for the contents of the manuscript and the accuracy of the references. All manuscripts submitted for publication must be accompanied by the Copyright Agreement and Authorship Acknowledgement Form. The manuscript should be submitted when this form has been signed by all the authors. By the submission of this form, it is understood that neither the manuscript nor the data it contains have been submitted elsewhere or previously published, and authors declare the statement of scientific contributions and responsibilities of all authors.

Manuscripts submitted to the CSMJ will be evaluated by a double-blind peer-review process. Each submission will be reviewed by the chief editor, deputy and associate editors and at least two external, independent peer expert reviewers. The editorial board will invite an external and independent editor to manage the evaluation processes of manuscripts submitted by editors or by the editorial board members of the journal. The reviewers will be requested to complete the review process within 6-8 weeks. Authors will be informed within a period of 8 weeks about the process. Upon review, those manuscripts, which are accepted, shall be published in the journal and issued on http://www.csmedj.org.

CSMJ does not charge any article submission or processing charges.

General Guidelines
Manuscripts can only be submitted electronically through the Manuscript Manager website after creating an account. This system allows online submission and review.

Format: Manuscripts should be prepared using Microsoft Word, size A4 with 2.5 cm margins on all sides, 12 pt Arial font and 1.5 line spacing.

Abbreviations: Abbreviations should be defined at first mention and used consistently thereafter. Internationally accepted abbreviations should be used; refer to scientific writing guides as necessary.
Cover letter: The cover letter should include statements about the manuscript type, single-journal submission affirmation, conflict of interest statement, sources of outside funding, equipment (if applicable), approval of language for articles in English and approval of statistical analysis for original research articles.

The Editorial Policies and General Guidelines for manuscript preparation specified below are based on “Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals (ICMJE Recommendations)” by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors.

The presentation of the article types must be designed in accordance with trial reporting guidelines:

Human research: Helsinki Declaration as revised in 2013

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses: PRISMA guidelines

Case reports: the CARE case report guidelines

Clinical trials: CONSORT

Animal studies: ARRIVE and Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals

Manuscripts are accepted only online and can be submitted electronically through web site (http://csmedj.org) after creating an account. This system allows online submission and review. The ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) number of the correspondence author should be provided while sending the manuscript. A free registration can be done at http://orcid.org. The manuscripts gathered with this system are archived according to ICMJE, Index Medicus (Medline/PubMed) and Ulakbim-Turkish Medicine Index Rules. Rejected manuscripts, except artworks, are not returned.

All pages of the manuscript should be numbered at the top right-hand corner, except for the title page. Papers should include the necessary number of tables and figures in order to provide a better understanding. The rules for the title page, references, figures and tables are valid for all types of articles published in this journal. Manuscripts submitted to the journal will first go through a technical evaluation process where the editorial office staff will ensure that the manuscript has been prepared and submitted in accordance with the journal’s guidelines. Submissions that do not conform to the journal’s guidelines will be returned to the submitting author with technical correction requests.

Ethical Guidelines
An approval of research protocols by the Ethics Committee in accordance with international agreements (World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki “Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects,” amended in October 2013) is required for experimental, clinical, and drug studies. Information about patient consent, the name and approval number of the ethics committee should be stated in the manuscript. Submissions that do not have ethical approval will be rejected after editorial review due to the lack of approval.

For experimental studies performed on animals, approval of research protocols by the Ethics Committee in accordance with international agreements is required. Also, a statement including measures for the prevention of pain and suffering should be declared in the manuscript. For manuscripts concerning experimental research on humans, a statement should be included that written informed consent of patients and volunteers was obtained following a detailed explanation of the procedures that they may undergo. The authors have the responsibility to protect the patients’ anonymity carefully. For photographs that may reveal the identity of the patients, signed releases of the patient or their legal representative should be obtained, and publication approval must be provided in the manuscript.

Authors must provide disclosure/acknowledgement of financial or material support, if any was received, for the submitted study. If the article includes any direct or indirect commercial links or if any institution provided material support to the study, authors must state in the cover letter that they have no relationship with the commercial product, drug, a pharmaceutical company. Concerned; or specify the type of relationship. Authors must provide a conflict of interest statement and an authorship contribution form.

The scientific board guiding the selection of the papers to be published in the Journal consists of elected experts of the Journal, and if necessary, selected from national and international authorities. The Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editors, biostatistics expert and language editors may make minor corrections to accepted manuscripts that do not change the main text of the paper.

Plagiarism and Ethical Misconduct
Cam & Sakura Medical Journal is sensitive about plagiarism. All submissions are screened by a similarity detection software (iThenticate by CrossCheck) at any point during the peer-review and/or production process. Authors are strongly recommended to avoid any form of plagiarism and ethical misconduct for the prevention of acceptance and/or publication processes. Results indicating plagiarism may result in manuscripts being returned for revision or rejected. In case of any suspicion or claim regarding scientific shortcomings or ethical infringement, the journal reserves the right to submit the manuscript to the supporting institutions or other authorities for investigation. CSMJ accepts the responsibility of initiating action but does not undertake any responsibility for an actual investigation or any power of decision.
Statistics
Every submission that contains statistical analyses or data-processing steps must explain the statistical methods in a detailed manner, either in the Methods or the relevant figure legend. Any special statistical code or software needed for scientists to reuse or reanalyse datasets should be discussed. We encourage authors to make openly available any code or scripts that would help readers reproduce any data-processing steps. Authors are also encouraged to summarize their datasets with descriptive statistics which should include the n value for each dataset; a clearly labelled measure of centre (such as the mean or the median); and a clearly labelled measure of variability (such as standard deviation or range). Ranges are more appropriate than standard deviations or standard errors for small datasets. Graphs should include clearly labelled error bars. Authors must state whether a number that follows the ± sign is a standard error (s.e.m.) or a standard deviation (s.d.). Authors must clearly explain the independence of any replicate measurements, and ‘technical replicates’ – repeated measurements on the same sample – should be clearly identified.

When hypothesis-based tests must be used, authors should state the name of the statistical test; the n value for each statistical analysis; the comparisons of interest; a justification for the use of that test (including, for example, a discussion of the normality of the data when the test is appropriate only for normal data); the alpha level for all tests, whether the tests were one-tailed or two-tailed; and the actual p-value for each test (not merely ‘significant’ or ‘p < 0.05’). It should be clear what statistical test was used to generate every p-value. Use of the word ‘significant’ should always be accompanied by a p-value; otherwise, use ‘substantial’, ‘considerable’, etc. Multiple test corrections must be used when appropriate and described in detail in the manuscript.

All manuscripts selected for full peer review will be assessed by a statistical editor, and their comments must be addressed in full.

Preparation of the Manuscript
a. Title Page
The title page should include the full title of the manuscript; information about the author(s) including names, affiliations, highest academic degree and ORCID numbers; contact information (address, phone, mail) of the corresponding author.  If the content of the paper has been presented before, and if the summary has been published, the time and place of the conference should be denoted on this page. If any grants or other financial support has been given by any institutions or firms for the study, information must be provided by the authors.
For regular article submissions, “What’s known on this subject?” and the “What this study adds?” summaries.

This page should include the title of the manuscript, short title, name(s) of the authors and author information. The following descriptions should be stated in the given order:

1. Title of the manuscript (English), as concise and explanatory as possible, including no abbreviations, up to 135 characters
2. Short title (English), up to 60 characters
3. Name(s) and surname(s) of the author(s) (without abbreviations and academic titles) and affiliations
4. Name, address, e-mail, phone and fax number of the corresponding author
5. The place and date of the scientific meeting in which the manuscript was presented and its abstract published in the abstract book, if applicable.
6. The ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) number of all authors should be provided while sending the manuscript. A free registration can be done at http://orcid.org.

b. Abstract
The abstract should summarize the manuscript and should not exceed 300 words. The abstract of the original articles consists of subheadings including “Objective, Methods, Results, and Conclusion”. Separate abstract sections are not used in the submission of the review articles, case reports, technical reports, diagnostic puzzles, clinical images, and novel articles. The use of abbreviations should be avoided.  Any abbreviations used must be taken into consideration independently of the abbreviations used in the text.

c. Keywords
A list of minimum 4, but no more than 6 keywords must follow the abstract. Keywords in English should be consistent with “Medical Subject Headings (MESH)”.

d. Original Article
The instructions in general guidelines should be followed. The main headings of the text should include “Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, Discussion,  Study Limitations and Conclusion”. The introduction should include the rationale and the background of the study. The results of the study should not be discussed in this part. “Materials and methods” section should be presented in sufficient details to permit the repetition of the work. The statistical methods used should be clearly indicated. Results should also be given in detail to allow the reproduction of the study. The Discussion section should provide a correct and thorough interpretation of the results with the relevant literature. The results should not be repeated in the Discussion Part. The references should be directly related to the findings of the authors. Study Limitation should be detailed in the section. The conclusion section should be highlighted and interpreted with the study’s new and important findings.

The excessive use of abbreviations is to be avoided. All abbreviations should be defined when first used by placing them in brackets after the full term. Abbreviations made in the abstract and in the text are taken into consideration separately. Abbreviations of the full terms stated in the abstract must be re-abbreviated after the same full term in the text.

Original Articles should be no longer than 3500 words and include no more than 6 tables and 7 or a total of 15 figures and 40 references. The abstract word limit must be 250.

Clinical Trial Policy
All clinical trials, which are any research projects that prospectively assign individuals or a group of people to an intervention, with or without concurrent comparison or control groups, in order to study the relationship between a health-related intervention and a health outcome, must be registered in a public trials registry acceptable to the International Committee of Medical Journals Editors (ICMJE). Authors of randomized controlled trials must adhere to the CONSORT guidelines , and provide both a CONSORT checklist (for protocols, see the SPIRIT guidance) and flow diagram. We require that you choose the MS Word template at www.consort-statement.org for the flow chart and cite/upload it in the manuscript as a figure. In addition, submitted manuscripts must include the unique registration number in the Abstract as evidence of registration. The Clinical Trial Registration Policy has been implemented in our journal as of September 2023. For more detailed instructions regarding clinical trials, please visit the guideline below:

Clinical Trials Guidelines

You can register for clinical trials by visiting the following link:
https://clinicaltrials.gov/

To register the relevant record in the system and learn more about the protocol to be followed, please review the link below:
https://classic.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/manage-recs/how-register

The other registries are accepted by ICJME:
www.anzctr.org.au
www.ISRCTN.org
www.umin.ac.jp/ctr/index/htm
www.onderzoekmetmensen.nl/en
https://eudract.ema.europa.eu/

Use of Large Language Models and Generative AI Tools
AI tools cannot meet the requirements for authorship as they cannot take responsibility for the submitted work. As non-legal entities, they cannot assert the presence or absence of conflicts of interest nor manage copyright and license agreements. Authors who use AI tools in the writing of a manuscript, production of images or graphical elements of the paper, or in the collection and analysis of data, must be transparent how the AI tool was used and which tool was used. Authors are fully responsible for the content of their manuscript, even those parts produced by an AI tool, and are thus liable for any breach of publication ethics.” COPE Position Statement on Authorship and AI tools. Detailed information about the statement can be accessed at https://publicationethics.org/cope-position-statements/ai-author

After reviewing the COPE statement, the editors of the Cam and Sakura Medical Journal have decided that papers should include a statement in a section called “Declaration Regarding the Use of AI and AI-Assisted Technologies” to let readers know if AI or AI-assisted tools were used in the writing process. It's important to remember that all authors are responsible for the content of their work. This declaration does not apply to the use of basic tools for checking grammar, spelling, or references (such as Mendeley, EndNote, Zotero, and others). If there is nothing to declare, there is no need to add a statement.

It is suggested that authors follow this format when preparing their statement:

During the preparation of this work, the author(s) utilized [NAME OF TOOL(S) USED] to [DESCRIPTION OF HOW THE TOOL(S) WERE UTILIZED AND HOW THE VALIDITY OF THE OUTPUTS WAS EVALUATED]. After carefully reviewing and editing the content as necessary, full responsibility for the publication's content is taken by the author(s). This incorporation of AI tool usage primarily impacted [SPECIFY WHICH ASPECTS OF THE STUDY, ARTICLE CONTENTS, DATA, OR SUPPORTING FILES WERE AFFECTED/GENERATED].

Example:

During the preparation of this work, the author(s) utilized OpenAI's ChatGPT to generate summaries of research articles related to the topic. These summaries were evaluated by comparing them to manually written summaries by experts in the field. Upon confirming the accuracy and relevance of the generated summaries, they were integrated into the literature review section of the manuscript. After carefully reviewing and editing the content as necessary, full responsibility for the publication's content is taken by the author(s). This incorporation of AI tool usage primarily impacted the efficiency of literature review process and the comprehensiveness of the gathered research insights.

Introduction
The article should begin with a brief introduction stating why the study was undertaken within the context of previous reports.

Materials and Methods
These should be described and referenced in sufficient detail for other investigators to repeat the work. Ethical consent should be included, as stated above.

The name of the ethical committee, approval number should be stated. At the same time, the Ethics Committee Approval Form should be uploaded with the article.

Results
The Results section should briefly present the experimental data in text, tables, and/or figures. Do not compare your observations with that of others in the results section.

Discussion
The Discussion should focus on the interpretation and significance of the findings with concise and objective comments that describe their relation to other work in that area and contain study limitations.

Study Limitations
Limitations of the study should be detailed. In addition, an evaluation of the implications of the obtained findings/results for future research should be outlined.

Conclusion
The conclusion of the study should be highlighted.

e. References
The reference list should be typed on a separate page at the end of the manuscript. Both in-text citations and references must be prepared according to the Vancouver style. Accuracy of reference data is the author’s responsibility. While citing publications, preference should be given to the latest, most up-to-date references. The DOI number should be provided for citation of ahead-of-print publication, Journal titles should be abbreviated in accordance with the journal abbreviations in Index Medicus/MEDLINE/PubMed. All authors should be listed in the presence of six or fewer authors. If there are seven or more authors, the first three authors should be listed, followed by “et al.”  References should be cited in text, tables, and figures should be cited as open source (1,2,3,4) in parenthesis numbers. References should be numbered consecutively according to the order in which they first appear in the text. The reference styles for different types of publications are presented as follows:

i) Standard Journal Article
Salminen P, Paajanen H, Rautio T, et al. Antibiotic therapy vs appendectomy for treatment of uncomplicated acute appendicitis: the APPAC randomized clinical trial. JAMA. 2015;313:2340-2348.

ii) Book
Getzen TE. Health economics: fundamentals of funds. New York: John Wiley & Sons; 1997.

iii) Chapter of a Book

Volpe JJ: Intracranial hemorrhage; in Volpe JJ (ed): Neurology of the Newborn, ed 5. Philadelphia, Saunders, 2008, pp 481-588.
Porter RJ, Meldrum BS. Antiepileptic drugs. In: Katzung BG, editor. Basic and clinical pharmacology. 6th ed. Norwalk, CN: Appleton and Lange; 1995. p. 361-380.

If more than one editor: editors.

iv) Conference Papers: Bengtsson S, Solheim BG. Enforcement of data protection, privacy and security in medical informatics. In: Lun KC, Degoulet P, Piemme TE, Reinhoff O, editors. MEDINFO 92. Proceedings of the 7th World Congress on Medical Informatics; 1992 Sep 6-10;Geneva, Switzerland: North-Holland; 1992. p. 1561-1565.

v) Journal on the Internet: Morse SS. Factors in the emergence of infectious disease. Emerg Infect Dis [serial online] 1995 1(1):[24 screens]. Available from:s URL:http://www/cdc/gov/ncidoc/EID/eid.htm. Accessed December 25, 1999.

vi) Thesis: Kaplan SI. Post-hospital home health care: the elderly access and utilization (thesis). St. Louis (MO): Washington Univ; 1995.

f. Tables, Graphics, Figures, Pictures, Video
All tables, graphics or figures should be numbered consecutively according to their place in the text and a brief descriptive caption should be given. Abbreviations used should be explained further in the figure’s legend. The text of tables especially should be easily understandable and should not repeat the data of the main text. Illustrations already published are acceptable if supplied by permission of the authors for publication. Figures should be done professionally, and no grey colors should be used. Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to publish any figures or illustrations that are protected by copyright, including figures published elsewhere and pictures taken by professional photographers. The journal cannot publish images downloaded from the Internet without appropriate permission.

Figures or illustrations should be uploaded separately.

Special Sections
Reviews
Reviews will be prepared by authors who have extensive knowledge on a particular field and whose scientific background has been translated into a high volume of publications with a high citation potential are welcomed. These authors and subjects will be invited by the journal.  All reviews within the scope of the journal will be taken into consideration by the editors; also, the editors may solicit a review related to the scope of the journal from any specialist and experienced authority in the field.

The entire text should not exceed 25 pages (A4, formatted as specified above).

Reviews should be no longer than 5000 words and include no more than 6 tables and 10 or a total of 20 figures and 80 references. The abstract word limit must be 250.

Case Reports
Case reports should present important and rare clinical experiences. It must provide novel and/or rare clinical data or new insights to the literature. Case reports should consist of an unstructured abstract (maximum 150 words) that summarizes the case. They should consist of the following parts: introduction, case report, discussion. Informed consent or signed releases from the patient or legal representative should be obtained and stated in the manuscript.

Reviews should be no longer than 1000 words and include no more than 200 tables and 10 or a total of 20 figures and 15 references. The abstract word limit must be 150.

Clinical Images
The journal publishes original, interesting, and high quality clinical images having a brief explanation (maximum 500 words excluding references but including figure legends) and of educational significance. It can be signed by no more than 5 authors and can have no more than 5 references and 1 figure or table. Any information that might identify the patient or hospital, including the date, should be removed from the image. An abstract is not required with this type of manuscripts. The main text of clinical images should be structured with the following subheadings: Case, and References.

Video Article
Video articles should include a brief introduction on case, surgery technique or a content of the video material. The main text should not exceed 500 words. References are welcomed and should not be more than 5. Along with the main document, video material and 3 images should be uploaded during submission. Video format must be mp4 and its size should not exceed 100 MB and be up to 10 minutes. Author should select 3 images, as highlights of the video, and provide them with appropriate explanations. Video and images must be cited within main text.

Technical reports
Technical reports are formal reports designed to convey technical information in a clear and easily accessible format. A technical report should describe the process, progress, or results of technical or scientific research or the state of a technical or scientific research problem. It might also include recommendations and conclusions of the research. Technical reports must include the following sections: abstract, introduction, technical report, discussion, conclusions, references. Technical reports should contain less than 20 references.

Diagnostic puzzle
Diagnostic puzzles report unusual cases that make an educational point. Since the aim of these articles is to stimulate the reader to think about the case, the title should be ambiguous and not give away the final diagnosis immediately. Diagnostic puzzles should include an introduction and answer part. The introduction part should include a brief clinical introduction to a case (maximum 250 words) followed by an image and a question designed to stimulate the reader to think about what the image shows. The legend should not indicate the diagnosis but should simply describe the nature of the image. Then, the answer part should appear later (maximum 250 words) outlines a brief description of the key diagnostic features of the image, the outcome, and a teaching point.
Diagnostic puzzles will not include more than 5 references. The quality of the image must be at least 300dpi and in TIFF, JPEG, GIF or EPS format. Videos are also welcome and should be in .mov, .avi, or .mpeg format.

Novel insight
This section will offer an opportunity for articles instead of the traditional category of Case Reports. Submissions to this section should contribute significant new insights into syndromological problems, molecular approach and real novelties on recognized or entirely new genetic syndromes or a new technique. The novel aspect(s) can be in the phenotype and/or genotype, the presentation, and the investigation. Submissions can be based around a single case or serial cases. Manuscripts for this section will go through the usual peer reviewing process. The manuscripts should contain abstract (maximum 150 words), a brief introduction, case report(s) and discussion.

Letters to the Editor
This section welcomes manuscripts that discuss important parts, overlooked aspects, or lacking parts of a previously published article in this journal. In addition, articles on subjects within the scope of the journal that might have an attraction including educative cases, may also be submitted in the form of a “Letter to the Editor.” The manuscripts for this section should be written in an unstructured text including references. The editor may request responses to the letters. There are no separate sections in the text.
Letter to the editors should be no longer than 500 words.

Revision Process
During the submission of the revised version of a manuscript, the authors should submit a detailed “Response to the reviewers and editors” that states point by point how each issue raised by the reviewers and/or editors has been replied to and where it can be found (each reviewer’s comment, followed by the author’s reply and line numbers where the changes have been made) as well as an annotated copy of the main document. Revised manuscripts should be submitted within 30 days from the date of the decision letter. If the revised version of the manuscript is not submitted within the allocated time, the revision option may be cancelled.