Aims and scope

Prenatal Cardiology is an international double blind, peer-reviewed, open access journal that publishes original research, reviews and news in the field of fetal cardiology. Our central goal is to provide a hub for researchers taking care on fetuses and newborn with congenital heart disease to present their discoveries, and to be a forum for the discussion of the important issues in the field. The journal accommodates a variety of exposition styles and formats to help scientists with diverse backgrounds interact.

Prenatal Cardiology does not have article processing charges (APCs) nor article submission charges.



All submissions to Prenatal Cardiology must be made via online submission system Editorial System at https://www.editorialsystem.com/pcard

PUBLICATION FORMATS

Prenatal Cardiology considers submissions of:
Research paper
Review paper
Case report
Letter to Editor
Other

ELECTRONIC SUBMISSION

Electronic Formats Allowed
We accept submission of text, tables and figures as separate files or as a composite file. For your initial submission, we recommend you upload your entire manuscript, including tables and figures, as a single file. If you are invited to submit a revised manuscript, please provide us with individual files: an editable text and publication-quality figures.
Text files can be submitted in the following formats: MS Word - standard DOCUMENT (.DOC) or DOCX, RTF, ODT.
Tables should be submitted as MS Word - standard DOCUMENT (.DOC) or DOCX, RTF, ODT. Please note that a straight Excel file is not an acceptable format.
Graphics files can be submitted in any of the following graphic formats: JPG, GIF, TIF, PNG.
Post-acceptance, text files of the revised manuscript and tables are required for use in the production. Authors should clearly indicate the location(s) of tables and figures in the text if these elements are given separately or at the end of the manuscript. If this information is not provided to the editorial office, we will assume that they should be left at the end of the text.

First-time Submission of Manuscripts
It is important that authors include a cover letter with their manuscript. Please explain why you consider your manuscript to be suitable for publication in the Journal, why your paper will inspire the other members of your field, and how will it drive research forward.
Manuscripts that have been previously rejected, or withdrawn after being returned for modification, may be resubmitted if the major criticisms have been addressed.
To ensure fair and objective decision-making, authors must declare any associations that pose a conflict of interest in connection with evaluated manuscripts (see Author’s Statements for details). Authors may suggest up to two referees not to use, and in such cases additional justification should be provided in the cover letter. Authors are encouraged to recommend up to five reviewers who are not members of their institution(s) and have never been associated with them or their laboratory(ies); please provide contact information for suggested reviewers. The Editors reserve the right to select expert reviewers at their discretion.

Submission of Revised Articles
Resubmitted manuscripts should be accompanied by a letter outlining a point-by-point response to Journal Editor's and reviewers' comments and detailing the changes made to the manuscript. A copy of the original manuscript should be included for comparison if the Journal Editor requests one. If it is the first revision, authors need to return the revised manuscript within 28 days; if it is the second revision, authors need to return the revised manuscript within 14 days. Additional time for resubmission must be requested in advance. If the above mentioned deadlines are not met, the manuscript will be treated as a new submission.
For resubmitted manuscripts, please provide us with an editable text and publication-quality figures: Tables also need to be included within an editable article file or be submitted separately as editable files. Supply any figures as separate high-resolution, print-ready digital versions.
In addition to the editorial remarks, authors are asked to take care that they have prepared the revised version according to the Journal's style. Please adopt numbered citation (citation-sequence) style referencing.

Ethical requirements

When reporting experiments on human subjects, authors should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 (concerning the ethical principles for the medical community and forbidding releasing the name of the patient, initials or the hospital evidence number) and with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national). The authors presenting case studies are obligated not to disclose patients' personal data. Regarding photographs, in case of any doubt that the picture inadequately protects the patient's anonymity his consent is required for publication.

Conflict of interest

Authors are expected to describe sources of the research funding, a role of the potential sponsor in planning, executing and analysis of the study, and the influence (bias) the funding organization had on the content of the article. Other relationships (such as employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony) providing potential sources of conflict of interest in relation to the submitted article should also be revealed.

Ghostwriting, guest authorship and plagiarism policy

Prenatal Cardiology has procedures in place to prevent ghostwriting, guest authorship, and plagiarism.

The reviewing process
Each manuscript is reviewed by at least two (2) independent reviewers. Reviews are based on the, so-called, double-blind review policy. The names of reviewers of each publication are not disclosed. The manuscript is qualified for printing after obtaining at least two (2) positive reviews.

PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPTS

It is essential that contributors prepare their manuscripts according to the instructions and specifications presented below.
The work must demonstrate its novelty, importance to the field and its interest to biomedical community in general. Conclusions must be justified by the study; please make your argumentation complete and be self-critical as you review your drafts.
The Journal encourages the submission of both substantial full-length bodies of work and shorter manuscripts that report novel findings that might be based on a more limited range of experiments. There are no specific length restrictions for the overall manuscript or individual sections; however, we urge the authors to present and discuss their findings in a concise and accessible manner.
Use simple, declarative sentences and commonly understood terms; avoid long sentences and idle words. Please use active voice while writing your manuscript; e.g. ‘we measured snout-vent length’ rather than ‘snout-vent length was measured. We recommend that for clarity you use the past tense to narrate particular events in the past, including the procedures, observations, and data of the study that you are reporting. Use the present tense for your own general conclusions, the conclusions of previous researchers, and generally accepted facts. Thus, most of the Abstract, Methods, and Results should be in the past tense, and most of the Introduction and some of the Discussion should be in the present tense. Editors may make suggestions for how to improve clarity and readability, as well as to strengthen the argument.

Original papers should be organized in a standard form with separate:

• Title
• Key words
• Summary
• Background
• Material and methods
• Results
• Discussion
• Conclusions
• Disclosures and acknowledgements
• References

Case studies should be divided to the following sections:

• Title
• Key words
• Summary
• Introduction
• Case description
• Conclusions.

Title

We suggest the title should include information that, along with the Abstract, will make electronic retrieval of the article sensitive and specific. Study design be a part of the title (particularly important for randomized trials and systematic reviews and meta-analyses). Authors, Affiliations, Addresses

Abstract

Because abstracts are the only substantive portion of the article indexed in many electronic databases, and the only portion many readers read, authors need to ensure that they accurately reflect the content of the article. Unfortunately, information in abstracts often differs from that in the text. Authors and editors should work in the process of revision and review to ensure that information is consistent in both places.

Keywords

The abstract should be followed by not more than 5 key words in accordance with the current Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). If proper MeSH terms for recently introduced notions are not available yet, generally used terms can be used.

Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion should be prepared according to ICMJE recommendation http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/manuscript-preparation/preparing-for-submission.html#a.

References

References should be listed and numbered in the order that they appear in the text. In the text, citations should be indicated by the reference number in brackets [1]. Multiple citations within a single set of brackets should be separated by commas [1,2]. Where there are more than three sequential citations, they should be given as a range [1-4]. References in figure captions and tables should be listed after references in the text.
The examples are as follows:
(J. Smith, unpublished data),
(J. Smith and P. Brown, submitted for publication),
(J. Smith, personal communication),
(J. Smith and P. Brown, presented at the 4th Symposium on Food Microbiology, Overton,
IL, 13 - 15 June 1989),
(J. C. Odell, April 1970, Process for batch culturing, U.S. patent 484,363,770),
(J. Smith, 20 June 1999, Australian Patent Office),
… from the GenBank database (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Genbank/index.html),
... using ABC software (version 2.2; Department of Microbiology, State University, http://www.stu.micro ),
Published or accepted ('in press') manuscripts, books and book chapters, and theses should be included in the reference list. References to published meeting abstracts should be kept to a minimum.
For all references, list the first six authors; add "et al." if there are additional authors. Standard abbreviations of journal names according to the style used for MEDLINE should be used.

Please use the following style for the reference list:

Published Papers
Kulig P., Zabel B.A., Dubin G., Allen S.J., Ohyama T., Potempa J., et al., Staphylococcus aureus-derived staphopain B, a potent cysteine protease activator of plasma chemerin, J. Immunol., 2007, 178, 3713-3720

Accepted Papers
Kulig P., Zabel B.A., Dubin G., Allen S.J., Ohyama T., Potempa J., et al., Staphylococcus aureus-derived staphopain B, a potent cysteine protease activator of plasma chemerin, J. Immunol., (in press), DOI: 12.3412/01

Electronic Journal Articles
Dionne M.S., Schneider D.S., Screening the immune system, Genome Biol., 2002, http://genomebiology.com/2002/3/4/reviews/1010

Books and book chapters
Sambrook J., Russell D.W., Molecular cloning - a laboratory manual, 3rd ed., Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, Cold Spring Harbor, 2001

Theses
Agutter A.J., Analysis of sigma factors in S. aureus, PhD thesis, Edinburgh University, Edinburgh, UK, 1995

Conference proceedings
Smith J., Brown P., Reference style guide, In: M. Scott (Ed.), Proceedings of Biochemical Society Conference (11-13 July 2007, Warszawa, Poland), Versita Warsaw, 2007, 1335-1791

Newspaper articles
Sherwin A., The post-genomic era, The Times, 13 July 2007, 1-2
M. Dzierzanowski, Horyzonty, Wprost, 8 July 2007, 18 (in Polish)

Figures and Figure Legends

Each figure should be provided in a separate file, not included in the text.
Figures should preferably be provided in the TIF or EPS format. JPG is also acceptable.
All figures, whether photographs, graphs or diagrams, should be numbered consecutively throughout.

Tables and Table Captions

Tables should be capture information concisely and display it efficiently; they also should provide information at any desired level of detail and precision. Including data in tables rather than text frequently makes it possible to reduce the length of the text.
Tables require a brief but descriptive heading.
The major divisions of the table should be indicated by horizontal rules.
Explanatory matter should be included in footnotes, indicated in the body of the table in order of their appearance.
Tables must not duplicate material in the text or in illustration.

Equations

In-line equations should be typed as text. The use of graphics programs and 'equation editors' should be avoided.

Abbreviations

Please keep abbreviations to a minimum. In addition to abbreviations for Systeme International d'Unités (SI) units of measurement, other common units (e.g., bp, kb, and Da), and chemical symbols for the elements, the following should be used without definition: DNA; cDNA; RNA; cRNA; RNase; DNase; rRNA; mRNA; tRNA; AMP, ADP, ATP, dAMP, ddATP, GTP, etc.; ATPase, dGTPase, etc.; NAD; NAD+; NADH; NADP; NADPH; NADP+; poly(A), poly(dT), etc.; oligo(dT), etc.; UV; PFU; CFU; MIC; Tris; DEAE; EDTA; EGTA; HEPES; PCR; and AIDS. Abbreviations for cell lines (e.g., HeLa) as well as viruses (e.g., HIV-1, JC virus, BK virus) also need not be defined. Non-standard abbreviations should not be used unless they appear at least three times in the text. List all non-standard abbreviations, acronyms and symbols in alphabetical order, along with their expanded form, at the end of the text. Define them as well upon first use in the text.

Supplemental Material

The following formats are acceptable:

• HTML (.html, htm),
• Jpeg (.jpg, .jpeg),
• GIF (.gif),
• TIFF (tif),
• PNG (.png),
• Adobe PDF (.pdf),
• Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet (.xls),
• Microsoft World (doc, docx),
• Encapsulated postscript (eps),
• LaTex (tex).

COPYRIGHT

This is an Open Access journal, all articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/), allowing third parties to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format and to remix, transform, and build upon the material, provided the original work is properly cited and states its license.