Journal of the Brazilian College of Surgeons - RCBC
 

1. Scope and Editorial Policy

The Journal of the Brazilian College of Surgeons (Revista do Colégio Brasileiro de Cirurgiões – RCBC) is the open-access, peer-reviewed, official journal of the Brazilian College of Surgeons (CBC), uninterruptedly published since 1974. As of January 2018, RCBC adopted a continuous publication model and, in January 2020, continuous publication became a single annual volume that allows for greater visibility and faster citation.

RCBC follows and supports the guidelines and recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Editors (ICMJE), the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Council of Science Editors (CSE), and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).

RCBC's mission is to support open science, which consists of transparent and accessible knowledge that is shared and developed through collaborative networks. RCBC aims to disseminate high quality research regarding innovation in all surgical specialties, as well as its impact on clinical and educational practices that allow the advancement of scientific and technical knowledge.

It accepts manuscripts in English (for submission by international researchers) and Portuguese (for submission by Brazilian researchers), and encourages the submission of works that bring new concepts in the field of clinical and experimental surgery, as well as in educational and historical aspects. After review and acceptance of the manuscript, all articles will also be published in English.

The journal primarily accepts manuscripts in the following broad areas of research:

• Head and neck surgery
• Emergency and trauma surgery
• Digestive tract surgery
• Experimental surgery
• General surgery
• Minimally invasive surgery
• Oncological surgery
• Pediatric surgery
• Thoracic surgery
• Vascular surgery
• Coloproctology
• Medical Education (Teaching)
• Digestive endoscopy
• Care management (quality, safety, and health network)
• Transplants

 
Other surgical specialties that are not listed above can submit articles of interest within general subjects (urgency, trauma, oncology, medical education, and management).

Published content is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0 - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.pt). The CC BY 4.0 allows anyone to use the publication freely, given proper attribution to the author(s) and citing work published on the RCBC. The CC BY 4.0 does not apply to third-party materials that display a copyright notice to prohibit copying. Unless third-party content is also subject to a CC BY 4.0 or an equally permissive license, the author(s) must comply with any third-party copyright notices.

Authors retain unrestricted copyright and all publishing rights.

The journal publishes the following categories of articles: Original Article, Review (Integrative, Scoped, and Systematic), Study Protocols, Editorial, Letter to the Editor, Scientific Communication, Technical Note, Teaching, and Surgical Bioethics.

2. Preprints – original articles only

RCBC encourages open access and information sharing with the aim of generating knowledge among researchers who need it to support their work. Therefore, RCBC accepts manuscripts that have been self-archived in preprint repositories, such as arXiv, MedXiv, Peer J, OSF, among others, as long as the repository does not restrict copyright and author reuse rights.

The preprint consists of a complete version of a scientific work that has not yet been peer-reviewed. Preprints operate independently of the journal and publishing a preprint does not affect the peer review process.

RCBC requests the completion of the Single Author Declaration Form (which also states whether it is a preprint and its compliance with Open Science), which must be submitted as a supplementary file to the manuscript and will be accessible to reviewers. RCBC requests that the preprint be listed in the Acknowledgments section and the full citation be included in the reference list.

3. Data Availability and Sharing

RCBC endorses the Joint Statement FORCE11 of the Data Citation Principle and considers of fundamental importance that data generated in research should be considered legitimate and citable research products. Data citations should be of equal relevance in the academic record. Therefore, RCBC strongly encourages authors to share their research data, including, but not limited to, raw data, processed data, software code, algorithms, protocols, methods, materials, questionnaires, audio or video tapes, deposited in appropriate public repositories, where available (see: https://www.re3data.org/, SCIELO Data).

RCBC requests the completion of Single Author Declaration Form (including the declaration of compliance with Open Science). For manuscript authors who are sharing their data, RCBC encourages the insertion of a Data Availability and Sharing section in the manuscript after the Reference section, following the examples below:

4. Ethical Considerations and Research Integrity

RCBC considers ethical integrity the cornerstone of scientific research and assistance to human beings. It thus recommends and supports the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Council of Science Editors (CSE), and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) regarding ethical publishing standards.
Material submitted to RCBC must adhere to the following policies to ensure ethical publication of scholarly work:

O material submetido à RCBC deve seguir as seguintes políticas para garantir a publicação ética de trabalhos acadêmicos:

• Original Content and Duplicate Publishing: RCBC only publishes original content. The authors confirm the submission of the original content in the Terms and Conditions at the time of submission. Manuscripts submitted to the journal must not have been previously published in another journal or be under consideration for publication elsewhere, in whole or in part. If an article has previously been submitted for publication elsewhere, RCBC will only consider publication if the article has been definitively rejected by the other editor(s) at the time of submission to RCBC.
   
• Fabrication and Falsification: RCBC opposes data or image fabrication or falsification practices (ie, the intentional misrepresentation or deceptive manipulation of data).
   
• Plagiarism: Plagiarism occurs when an author attempts to present a previously published work as original content. RCBC uses the Turnitin software, which allows the detection of similarities in the submitted manuscripts.

Plagiarism, fabrication of images and data, duplicate publication, among other conditions, are considered misconduct in research (more at FAPESP's Code of Good Scientific Practices).

Research misconduct does not include honest errors or differences of opinion.

Concepts, ideas, or opinions expressed in the manuscripts, as well as the origin and accuracy of the citations contained therein, are the sole responsibility of the author(s).

In cases where misconduct is identified, the RCBC editorial board will take the necessary steps in accordance with international recommendations (COPE) and publish a retraction.

a. Research with Humans and Experiments

All studies involving humans or human tissue must comply with the Declaration of Helsinki (https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma- declaration-of-helsinki-ethical-principles-for-medical-research-involving-human- subjects/) and must have been approved by the Ethics in Research Committee of the local institution. Thus, in the Methods section, authors must identify the approval (CAAE number and opinion number for Brazil) and the ethics committee of the institution that reviewed the study.

Experimental work involving animals must comply with the rules established in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (Institute of Laboratory Animal Resources, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC, United States) of 1996 and in the Ethical Principles in Animal Experimentation (Brazilian College of Animal Experimentation – COBEA, available at: www.cobea.org.br)1991. This information must be included in the methods section, according to the ARRIVE recommendation – https://www.nc3rs.org.uk/arrive-guidelines.

For all animal and human experiments, the sex of the animal used must be indicated. If males and females were used, the number of subjects of each sex must be informed, indicating whether the sex of the animal was considered a factor in the data statistical analysis. If only one sex was used, the justification must be stated. For cell culture experiments, the sex from which the primary cell or tissue cultures were obtained must be indicated. Authors are also encouraged to include the sex of cell lines. If cells or tissues of either sex were used, this should be indicated.

b. Clinical Trials Registration

RCBC supports initiatives to improve the communication of clinical trials. This includes the policies for clinical trial registration of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the ICMJE, recognizing the importance of these initiatives for the registration and international dissemination of information about clinical trials in open access. Thus, RCBC will accept only clinical research articles that have received an identification number in one of the Clinical Trials Registries validated by the criteria established by the WHO and the ICMJE (Brazilian Clinical Trials Registry – REBEC – http://www.ensaiosclinicos.gov.br/ or http://apps.who.int/trialsearch/default.aspx).

The trial registration number (TRN) and the registration date must be included in the last line of the manuscript abstract.

c. Conflict of interest

Authors must disclose any conflicts of interest that may exist regarding the research or article publication. Failure to state any conflicts of interest is a form of misconduct. Conflicts of interest can be financial or non-financial in nature. All authors must complete the Single Author Declaration Form, which includes the declaration of potential conflicts of interest, based on the recommendations of the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals – http://www.icmje.org/. The completed form must be submitted together with the manuscript as a Supplementary File.

d. Author(s) Contribution

RCBC follows the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) author statement https://www.elsevier.com/authors/policies-and-guidelines/credit-author-statement, To qualify for authorship of a manuscript, CRediT offers authors the opportunity to share an accurate and detailed description of their various contributions to published work.

• The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that descriptions are accurate and agreed upon by all authors.
• The role(s) of all authors should be listed, using the relevant categories.
• Authors may have contributed in various roles.
• CRediT does not in any way change the journal's criteria to qualify for authorship.

 CRediT statements must be provided during the submission process on the digital platform, as shown below:

Reprinted from Brand et al. (2015)

Those who contributed to the work but do not qualify for authorship should be listed in the acknowledgments.

Any changes to the author list must be approved by all authors, including removals from the list. The corresponding author must act as the contact between the editor and other authors and must keep co-authors informed and involve them in major decisions about the publication. We reserve the right to request confirmation that all authors meet the conditions of authorship.

The Author’s Contribution Statement is included in the Single Author Declaration Form.

e. Peer Review Policy

Peer review is the system used to assess the quality of a manuscript before it is published. Independent researchers in the relevant research area assess submitted manuscripts for originality, validity, and significance to help editors determine whether the manuscript must be published.

RCBC adopts the anonymous, double peer review process, which means that authors' identities are withheld from reviewers and vice versa.

5. Manuscript Category

RCBC strongly encourages authors and manuscripts to meet the quality standards set by the guidelines for health research production – Enhancing the Quality and Transparency of Health Research Network (EQUATOR) (https://www.equator-network.org/). EQUATOR is a directory that provides guidelines aimed at improving the reliability of published health research literature and promoting transparent and accurate reporting.

RCBC requires that each manuscript include the properly completed EQUATOR checklist (identify the manuscript page where each item can be located) as a Supplementary File, in accordance with the study design

Manuscripts that do not meet this requirement will be returned.

• Original articles: complete report of observational or experimental clinical investigation, regardless of whether they present positive or negative results, in addition to using adequate and reliable methods. Original articles must contain 3,500 to 5,000 words and 50 references.
  • Randomized trials must follow the CONSORT guidelines (http://www.consort-statement.org). EThis statement provides an evidence-based approach to improving the quality of clinical trial reporting. All manuscripts describing a clinical trial must include the CONSORT Flow Diagram showing the number of participants in each intervention group, as well as a detailed description of how many patients were excluded at each step of the data analysis. All clinical trials must be registered and made available on an open access website. The clinical trial protocol (including the complete statistical analysis plan) must be submitted with the manuscript (https://trialsjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1745-6215-11-9)
     
  • Observational studies: cohort, case control, or cross-sectional studies must be reported according to the STROBE statement – https://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/strobe/ - and must be submitted with their protocols.
     
• Review Articles: manuscripts that employ systematic methods and explicit criteria to identify, select, and critically evaluate relevant research, and to collect and analyze data from studies included in the review. This category includes systematic reviews, with or without meta-analysis, and integrative and scoping reviews. Narrative revisions will not be accepted, except at the invitation of the Journal's editors. Reviews must contain 7,000 words and 75 references.
  • Systematic Reviews and meta-analyses must be reported according to the PRISMA guideline – http://www.prisma-statement.org/PRISMAStatement/ – and must provide the protocol registration number of the PROSPERO database – https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/.
     
  • Scope Reviews must be reported in accordance with the PRISMA ScR guideline (http://www.prisma-statement.org/Extensions/ScopingReviews) and the protocols preferably made available in open access repositories, such as OSF – Open Science Framework.
     
  • Integrative Reviews must adhere to a methodological rigor exemplificated in the following article: Arksey, Hilary, and Lisa O'Malley. Scoping Studies: Towards a Methodological Framework. Int J Social Res Method. 2005;8(1):19-32. doi: 10.1080/1364557032000119616. 
     
  • Manuscripts containing a chronological description of the literature will not be accepted.
     
  • Narrative reviews will not be accepted.
     
• Study Protocols: pprotocols for clinical trials, randomized or not, and for systematic reviews with high relevance to the scientific community and high methodological rigor will be considered for publication. Protocols must contain up to 5,000 words and 50 references.
  • Systematic Review Protocols should follow the PRISMA P recommendations – https://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/prisma-protocols/
     
  • Clinical Trial Protocols should follow the SPIRIT recommendations – https://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/spirit-2013-statement-defining-standard-protocol-items-for-clinical-trials/
     
• Scientific Communication: content that initially addresses a relevant surgical topic, with ongoing scientific research and the proposal of solutions. Due to these characteristics, this section can be interprofessional and interdisciplinary, receiving contributions from physicians, surgeons, and non-surgeons, and from other professionals from the most varied areas. In this category, manuscripts must contain 3,000 words and 30 references.
   
• Letters to the Editor: scientific or controversial comments regarding articles published in RCBC. Letters to the editor will be forwarded to the main author of the article in question, so that she/he can respond. Both letters will be published in the same issue of the magazine, no reply being allowed. If the main author of the article that generated the letter to the editor does not respond, it will be published anyway, should the Editor-in-Chief consider it relevant. Letters to the Editor must contain a maximum of 1,000 words and up to 10 references.
   
• Editorial: manuscripts by invitation that address current issues, which can be requested by the Editor-in-Chief from the author of recognized technical and scientific capacity but can also be submitted as an opinion of authors on a controversial or scientifically relevant subject.
   
• Technical Note: manuscripts that address new surgical techniques or modification of an established technique of practical importance. The technique should be described in detail and there should be extensive discussion of benefits. It must contain 3,000 words and up to 30 references.
   
• Teaching: content that addresses the teaching of Surgery at undergraduate or graduate levels or of general interest for Medical Education. It must follow the format described for Review Articles.
   
• Bioethics in Surgery: discussion of bioethical aspects in Surgery. The content must address the existing bioethical dilemmas in the performance of the surgical activity. In this category the manuscript must have 3,000 words and up to 30 References.
   

6. Preparation of Manuscripts

Enabling the as many readers as possible to access your article is extremely important to increase the visibility of your research and of our Journal. For this purpose, we must use a robust strategy of search engine optimization and search for articles from Google and other specific search sites. There is an active need to ensure that all content of the articles published in Journal of the Brazilian College of Surgeons be visible and highly rated. For this, authors must also play a crucial role in optimizing search results, making their article discoverable.

The manuscript must be in single-column format, keeping the formatting as simple as possible (prefer Times New Roman or Arial fonts, size 10 to 12, with double space between lines, and top, bottom, and side margins at 2.5 cm). The acceptable word processor file formats are Microsoft Word (DOC and DOCX) or Rich Text Format (RTF).

RCBC adopts the anonymous, double peer review process, which means that authors' identities are withheld from reviewers and vice versa. Therefore, the following documents must be included separately:

• Title Page:
  1. The study title should be descriptive, clear, and concise, with a maximum of 200 characters, and friendly to search engines. The title should provide guidance on the content of your article, incorporating phrases that use your keywords in the first 65 characters. Avoid using terms that indicate any regional mention.
      
  2. Clear and concise study title. For manuscripts in Portuguese, provide the title in English.
      
  3. Clearly indicate the name(s) and surname(s) of each author and ensure that all names are spelled correctly.
      
  4. The affiliation of each author must contain the following information: university, department, city, zip code, country, institutional email, and the Open Researcher and Contributor (ORCID) ID – https://orcid.org/signin.
      
  5. Indicate the corresponding author at all stages of evaluation and publication, which presupposes the responsibility to answer any future questions about the study. Please ensure that the email address is provided and that contact details are kept up to date by the corresponding author.
      
  6. All contributors who do not meet the authorship criteria must be listed in the Acknowledgments section, as well as financial support from funding agencies.
      
• Main Text: there are several guidelines that must be used:
  1. Include the keywords and phrases you used in the abstract. Provide additional relevant keywords and synonyms for those keywords related to your article. Keywords are not only important to search engines, they are also used by indexing services as a mechanism for tagging search content.
      
  2. Consistently refer to authors' names and initials throughout the article and make sure you are mentioning them in the same way they were referred to in previous online publications.
      
  3. The subheadings of the various sections of your article tell search engines about the structure and content of your article. Incorporate your keywords and phrases into these subheadings whenever appropriate.
      
  4. Cite your previous work or that of your coauthors as appropriate. Citations to your previous articles influence how research ranks your current and future work.
      
  5. The main text must contain the following information according to the table below.

Keywords: use between 3 and 10 keywords, previously verified in the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms. RCBC suggests tools like DecsFinder (https://decsfinder.bvsalud.org/dmfs) and Mesh on Demand (https://meshb.nlm.nih.gov/MeSHonDemand) which allow the identification of descriptors by finding terms in the manuscript abstract. Keep in mind that the greater the scope of the keywords, the greater the possibility that the article, if accepted, can be found on scientific search platforms.
 
Abstract: must start on the second page of the manuscript and have the maximum number of words according to the type of article being submitted. It must be structured (following the same format as the article structure), direct, and easy to read.
 
Abbreviations and Terminology: Abbreviations should be as few as possible and limited to terms mentioned repeatedly, as long as they do not alter the understanding of the text, and should be defined at first use. RCBC adopts the Official Universal Anatomical Terminology, approved by the International Federation of Associations of Anatomists (IFAA).
 
Units of Measurement: values of physical quantities must be reported according to the standards of the International System of Units.
 
Funding: tall sources of research support (if any), as well as the project number and the responsible institution, must be declared. The role of funding agencies in the study design and data collection, analysis, and interpretation and manuscript writing should be stated in Acknowledgments.
 
Acknowledgments: should be made to people who have made an important contribution to the research.
 

References: must be predominantly from works published in the last five years, easily accessible to the reader (preferably with a DOI number, as it guarantees a permanent access link to the electronic article), and formatted according to the Vancouver Style (https://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html). If there are works with similar content previously published in RCBC, we suggest evaluating such citations. References must be listed in numerical sequence, as they are cited in the text. Personal communications and unpublished data should be cited in parentheses in the text, and not included in the numbered reference listed at the end of the article. Such quotes from someone other than the author (eg, personal communication) may only be published if there is a signed permission letter. Authors are strongly encouraged to verify the accuracy of each reference against the original source.

Avoid citing conference proceedings, personal communications, and theses in the manuscript. Citations from books and book chapters are discouraged. The authors of the manuscript are responsible for the veracity of the references.
 

Examples of references:

Items with DOI: Zhang M, Holman CD, Price SD, Sanfilippo FM, Preen DB, Bulsara MK. Comorbidity and repeat admission to hospital for adverse drug reactions in older adults: retrospective cohort study. BMJ 2009 Jan 7; 338: a2752. doi: 10.1136/bmj.a275
 
Preprint: Bar DZ, Atkatsh K, Tavarez U, Erdos MR, Gruenbaum Y, Collins FS. Biotinylation by antibody recognition – A novel method for proximity labeling. BioRxiv 069187 [Preprint]. 2016 [cited 2017 Jan 12]. Available from: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/069187v1
 
Citation and Reference of Research Data and Other Content: RCBC encourages citing data files, software code, and other underlying or relevant content in the manuscript, and referencing the data in the References section. RCBC endorses the FORCE 11 Data Citation Principles (https://www.force11.org/datacitationprinciples) which state that all publicly available datasets should be fully referenced in the reference list, with a number access code or unique identifier, such as a digital object identifier (DOI). For more information, see: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7273/#A57722

Reference example:

Kraemer MUG, Sinka ME, Duda KA, Mylne A, Shearer FM, Brady OJ, Messina JP, Barker CM, Moore CG, Carvalho RG, Coelho GE, Van Bortel W, Hendrickx G, Schaffner F, Wint GRW, Elyazar IRF, Teng H, Hay SI. The global compendium of Aedes aegypti and Ae. albopictus occurrence [dataset]. 2015 Jun 30 [cited 2015 Oct 23]. Dryad Digital Repository. Available from: https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.47v3c Referenced in doi: 10.7554/eLife.08347
 
Tables and Figures: When preparing tables, if using a table grid, use only one grid for each individual table and not one grid for each row. If no grid is used, use tabs, without spaces, to align columns. To avoid unnecessary errors, it is recommended that the word processor's 'spell check' and 'grammar check' functions be used. Tables must be sent in .doc or .docx file, so that they can be edited. Figures must be sent in separate files, in .JPG, .GIF, or .TIF formats (minimum 300 dpi), and with reference of the insertion location in the text.

7.  Article Processing Fee

Open access publishing is not free of cost.

If the manuscript is approved, it will cost BRL 2,500.00 (two thousand and five hundred reais)/U$500.00 (five hundred dollars) to be charged to the corresponding author.

Articles whose first or last author is a CBC non-defaulting member, the value will be R$ 1,500.00/US$ 300.00 (three hundred dollars). This value will be valid for articles submitted from 02/01/2024.

For more information about the Article Processing Fee, contact revista@cbc.org.br

8. Responsability for Translation

For manuscripts submitted in Portuguese and accepted for publication in Revista do CBC, it is the authors' responsibility to ensure that the translation into English is carried out. CBC Magazine requires that all accepted manuscripts be translated into English by qualified professionals. In addition, authors must provide a certificate that proves the quality and authenticity of the translation, which must be sent to the email: revista@cbc.org.br.

To make it easier to choose reliable translation services, Revista do CBC suggests the following companies and translators:

• Marcel Milcent: marcelmilcent@gmail.com
• Editora Cubo: comercial@editoracubo.com.br
• Prime Translations: comercial2@primetranslations.com.br
• Alisson Correia: oalissoncorreia@gmail.com

Authors are encouraged to contact these companies directly to discuss their translation needs and ensure the accuracy and quality of the English text. Submission of the translation certificate is crucial for validating the quality and accuracy of the translation provided.

9. Submission Process

The submission of manuscripts to RCBC can only be done through the online platform, which must be accessed on the CBC website or directly on the website.

At the time of submission to RCBC, authors must submit the following documents:

• Approval of the Research Ethics Committee;
• Authors’ Single Author Declaration Form (1- Preprints and Data Compliance with Open Science; 2- Declaration of potential conflicts of interest; and 3- Declaration of Author(s) Contribution.
• Title Page
• Manuscript;
• Equator Checklist – duly completed (identify the manuscript page where each item can be located) as a Supplementary File, according to the study design (eg CONSORT for randomized controlled trials, STROBE for observational studies, STARD for diagnostic and prognostic studies, among others).

In case of manuscript approval, authors must also submit:

• Proof of payment of the publication fee in the amount of R$2,500.00/U$500.00 (five hundred dollars). If the first or last author is a member of the CBC, the amount will be R$ 1,500.00/US$ 300.00 (three hundred dollars). This value will be valid for articles submitted from 02/01/2024.
• Translated article and Certificate proving the quality and authenticity of the translation.

10. Contacts

• Ramiro Colleoni: coeditor@cbc.org.br
• Julia Castro Neves: revista@cbc.org.br

  Single Author Declaration Form

Click here to download.