Instructions for authors

Download:
- Authors’ Declaration
- Ghostwriting Declaration

Polish Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery (“Kardiochirurgia i Torakochirurgia Polska“) is a quarterly publishing original papers, reviews and letters to the Editor in the field of adult and paediatric cardiac surgery, thoracic surgery, cardiology, cardiac anaesthesia and intensive care, pulmonology and transplantation. The Journal also publishes reports and materials from scientific conferences, book reviews, information on upcoming scientific congresses and conferences.
All the papers are published in English.

Articles published in “Kardiochirurgia i Torakochirurgia Polska” are the property of the Polish Society of Cardiothoracic Surgeons and the Editorial Office. The quarterly accepts no responsibility for statements, opinions and data included in articles and advertising materials.
Articles can be submitted solely and exclusively via the online editorial system available at www.termedia.pl in the section journals/Kardiochirurgia i Torakochirurgia Polska (http://www.editorialsystem.com/kitp). The system accepts files with the following extensions: *.doc,*. xls, *.rtf, *.ppt, *.jpg, *.tif, *.gif, *.png, *.psd, *.pdf. No other file extensions are allowed. The online editorial system facilitates a step-by-step submission process of the required materials. Each paper should be accompanied by a completed and signed Authors’ Declaration and Ghostwriting Declaration, which are available to download in the section “Instructions for Authors”. The declarations, together with the article in English should be submitted via the electronic system.
“Kardiochirurgia i Torakochirurgia Polska/Polish Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery” does not accept CASE REPORTS. Case reports should be submitted as Letters to the Editor. Letters to the Editor do not include abstract nor subheadings.
The length of original and review papers should not exceed 15 pages. Letters to the Editor should be no longer than 5 pages, including references and no more than 2 figures. The submitted text should be typed in min. 12-point font size and double line spacing, with a 2.5 cm margin on all four sides. The pages should be numbered.

Title page
The title page should contain only the title of the manuscript.

Abstract
The abstract (in both Polish and English) should be between 200 and 250 words for original papers, and up to 150 words for reviews. The abstract of an original paper should be structured, i.e. include the following parts: background, aim, material and methods, results and conclusions. The abstract should be followed by no more than five keywords – in compliance with the Index Medicus (Medical Subject Reading) - in English and Polish. At the author’s request and expense, the editorial staff may commission the translation of the submitted paper.

Text
The text should be structured in the following way: background, aim, material and methods, results, discussion and conclusions. Background should present the current state of knowledge in the given subject. The research hypothesis and purposes of the work should be defined explicitly in Aim. Material and methods should include a detailed description of all the research methods used. The names of the software and statistical methods used to analyze the results should be stated. In Results, the obtained outcomes should be presented in a clear and comprehensible way, remembering that curve diagrams and bar charts are more easily accessible to readers than tables or data included in the text only. Results of biochemical and other assessments should be given in the SI units. In Discussion, the authors inform to what extent the research aims have been achieved and to what extent the findings are original. The methodological limitations should be stated. The obtained results should be compared with the results of other investigators. In Conclusions, the authors should refer to the aims of the work and discuss them, paying particular attention to linguistic precision. Literature references should be in square brackets, e.g. [3-7, 12, 14-17]. Automatic numbering should not be used for literature and references.

References
The list of references should be arranged in the order they appear in the text.
For original papers, the references should not exceed 25 items, reviews – 40 and letters to the Editor - 7. References should only include published works. Bibliographic descriptions of journal articles should include: surname followed by initials (for all authors), title of article, abbreviated title of journal (in compliance with the Index Medicus), year of publication, volume number, page number (first and last), strictly following the punctuation pattern shown in the example below: Wierup P, Andersen C, Janciauskas D, Bolys R, Sjoberg T, Steen S. Bronchial healing, lung parenchymal histology, and blood gases one month after transplantation of lungs topically cooled for 2 hours in the non-heart-beating cadaver. J Heart Lung Transplant 2000; 19: 270-276. Descriptions of monographs (books) should include the authors’ surnames followed by initials, title of publication, publisher, place and year of publication. For an edited book, the editor(s) surname(s) should be stated after the title of the book and the abbreviation “ed(s)“, e.g.: Pijls NH, De Bruyne B. Coronary pressure. Kluwer Academic Publishers, London 2000. l Poole-Wilson PA. Chronic heart failure causes pathophysiology, prognosis, clinical manifestations, investigation. In: Julian DG, Camm AJ, Fox KM, et al. (eds). Disease of the Heart. Bailliere-Tindall, London 1989; 48.

Tables and figures
Tables and figures (including a photo of the first author) should be saved as separate files; tables should be numbered with Roman numerals and figures with Arabic numerals. Tables and figures should not be included in the body of the text but their location within the text should be indicated. Titles and legends should be placed at the end of the article, after Literature. Figures and photographs should be submitted in the electronic form in one of the following formats: *.tif, *.gif or *.jpg (resolution 300 dpi). Figures should not be sent in the MS Word (*.doc) format.
When publishing an article, the author(s) should ensure that it complies with requirements of the Declaration of Helsinki (an international medical ethics act, signed in 1975, which prohibits revealing the patients’ names and initials or hospital record numbers). Information concerning the Ethics Committee approval, together with patient informed consent should be included in Materials and methods for all papers where the diagnostic and therapeutic procedures are divergent from standards. With regard to photographs, the patient’s written permission for publication must always be obtained.
Discussion should be followed by a brief disclosure of funding sources (e.g. grants, individual sponsors). Authors presenting results of clinical studies of drugs and medical procedures should provide a detailed description of the study’s funding, the sponsor’s role in the planning and execution of the study and in the analysis of the results, as well as the impact of the sponsoring institution on the contents of the paper. Regardless of the topic of the submitted paper, international drug names should be used throughout the text. Abbreviations used in the text should always be explained at first mention (this also applies to the abstract). Abbreviations should not be used in the title of the submission, save for exceptional situations.
Papers undergo preliminary assessment by the Editorial Office and are subsequently forwarded for review. The reviewers do not know the names of authors or the name of the centre from which the article is submitted. The papers are often published together with the reviewer’s comments. If the authors wish to respond to the reviewer’s comments, they can send their reply which will be published in the section Letters to the Editor.

Review process
Submitted manuscripts which comply with instructions for authors are subject to assessment by reviewers. The editors select reviewers taking into account topics presented in the article submitted. Each paper is evaluated by independent reviewers in the double-blind review process, in which authors do not know the identity of their reviewers, nor do the reviewers know the identities of the authors. Reviewers assess the work using the electronic system on the basis of questions prepared for a specific title. Reviewers may also provide individual comments on the article. The paper is accepted for publication after the Editor-in-Chief receives positive opinions of experts.

The authors will receive no monetary returns for publishing their manuscripts in PolishJournal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. No presentation copies are provided.

ETHICAL STANDARDS AND PROCEDURES
Termedia Publishing House is committed to upholding standards of ethical behaviour at all stages of the publication process. We follow closely the industry associations, such as the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICJME) and World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), that set standards and provide guidelines for best practices in order to meet these requirements.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF AUTHORS
The author is obliged to prepare and send the article in accordance with the requirements set out in the journal Editor. Moreover the author is obliged to submit editorial complemented by a statement which will be included: a statement about the originality of the content of the article (work not yet published anywhere), the integrity of the copyrights of others, no conflict of interest or its application, as well as the superior permission to publish an article in the journal. Authors are responsible for disclosing all financial and personal relationships that might bias or be seen to bias their work.

AUTHORSHIP CRITERIA AND/OR WHO SHOULD BE LISTED AS A CONTRIBUTOR
Termedia Publishing House in the matter of authorship criteria and/or who should be listed as a contributor, respects standards recommended by COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics). Detailed information about those criteria you can find in COPE Report publicationethics.org/files/2003pdf12_0.pdf.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF REVIEWERS
Articles are selected for publication in double blind selection system and published in open access system. Reviewer shall review by the electronic system on the basis of questions prepared for a specific title. Reviewer is also possible to send individual comments to be published in the article content.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF EDITORS
Editors are responsible for deciding which of the articles accepted for publication. Editors act in a balanced, objective and fair way while carrying out their expected duties, without discrimination on grounds of gender, sexual orientation, religious or political beliefs, ethnic or geographical origin of the authors.