For Authors

About the Journal

The European Journal of Clinical and Experimental Medicine (Eur J Clin Exp Med) is an open access journal, and all articles are free to access, download, share, and re-use. The Eur J Clin Exp Med is a peer-reviewed, scientific journal that publishes full-length articles on topics within medical science. The journal welcomes submissions of articles on current advances in life and health sciences, clinical and experimental medicine, and related disciplines.

Publication frequency

The Eur J Clin Exp Med publishes four issues per year with online-first publication. All accepted articles are published online promptly after completion of editorial production and subsequently assigned to an issue. The journal ensures regular publication according to the announced schedule.

Editorial structure and independence

The journal is led by the Editor-in-Chief and supported by an international Editorial Board and Scientific Advisory Board. Editorial decisions are based solely on the scientific merit of submissions and are independent of the publisher, sponsors, and institutional affiliations. Editorial roles and responsibilities are defined and publicly available on the journal website.

Open access and creative commons

Our open access policy is in accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) definition: this means that articles have free availability on the public Internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from having access to the Internet itself.

All articles are published with free open access under the CC-BY Creative Commons attribution license (the current version is CC-BY, version 4.0). If you submit your paper for publication by the Eur J Clin Exp Med, you agree to have the CC-BY license applied to your work. Under this Open Access license, you, as the author, agree that anyone may download and read the paper for free. In addition, the article may be reused and quoted provided that the original published version is cited. This facilitates freedom in re-use and also ensures that Eur J Clin Exp Med content can be mined without barriers for the research needs.

All published articles include a clear license statement (CC BY 4.0) within the full text and PDF versions to ensure transparency, reuse, and machine-readable indexing. The CC BY 4.0 license applies to the article content except where otherwise indicated for third-party material.

Article processing charges

The Eur J Clin Exp Med is an open access journal and does not levy any article processing charges. There are no submission, color, or page charges for any article type.

Copyright Statement

Authors of articles published in the Eur J Clin Exp Med retain copyright on their articles, except for any third-party images and other materials added by the Eur J Clin Exp Med which are subject to copyright of their respective owners. Authors are therefore free to disseminate and re-publish their articles, subject to any requirements of third-party copyright owners and subject to the original publication being fully cited. Visitors may also download and forward articles subject to the citation requirements. The ability to copy, download, forward or otherwise distribute any materials is always subject to any copyright notices displayed. Copyright notices must be displayed prominently and may not be obliterated, deleted or hidden, totally or partially.

Authors warrant that they hold the necessary rights to all content submitted for publication, including figures, tables, and supplementary materials, and that any required permissions have been obtained prior to submission. Any breach of copyright or licensing terms may result in editorial action, including rejection, correction, or retraction of the article.

Ethics in publishing

The Eur J Clin Exp Med is committed to rigorous peer review and strict ethical policies to ensure the publication of high-quality scientific work. Cases of plagiarism, data fabrication and falsification, inappropriate authorship practices, and other forms of publication misconduct may occur and are treated with utmost seriousness. The journal applies a zero-tolerance policy toward confirmed cases of ethical misconduct.

The Eur J Clin Exp Med is a member of and subscribes to the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The journal uses plagiarism detection software, and by submitting a manuscript authors agree that their work may be screened for plagiarism against previously published content.

Handling complaints and allegations of misconduct

The journal follows COPE guidance for handling allegations of misconduct (e.g., plagiarism, data fabrication/falsification, unethical research, authorship manipulation, peer-review manipulation). Allegations may be reported to the Editorial Office. The Editor-in-Chief (or a delegated editor without conflicts of interest) will conduct an initial assessment and, when appropriate, request explanations and original data from authors, consult independent experts, and/or contact the authors’ institutions. If concerns are substantiated, the journal may issue an Expression of Concern, Correction, or Retraction. All investigations are documented and handled confidentially.

Changes to authorship

Authors are expected to consider carefully the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript and provide the definitive list of authors at the time of the original submission. Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made only before a final acceptance decision, and only if approved by the journal Editor. To request such a change, the Editor must receive the following from the corresponding author: (a) the reason for the change in author list and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed. Authorship change requests may pause editorial processing and will be evaluated to prevent inappropriate authorship practices.

After the article has been published, no changes to the list of authors or the order of authorship will be permitted under any circumstances. All authors must approve the final author list before publication.

Clinical Trial Registration

Clinical trials must comply with all policies related to research involving human subjects. Additionally, the Eur J Clin Exp Med adheres to the guidelines set by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which mandate the registration of clinical trials in a public trials registry prior to or at the time of the first patient enrollment as a prerequisite for publication consideration. The ICMJE defines a clinical trial as any research study that prospectively assigns individuals or groups to an intervention, with or without a concurrent control or comparison group, to examine the association between a health-related intervention and an outcome. Consequently, the term "clinical trial" extends beyond hospital-based studies or pharmaceutical research to include all investigations involving participant randomization and group classification in relation to the intervention being evaluated.

Authors must pre-register clinical trials in an internationally recognized clinical trials registry. Suitable databases include ClinicalTrials.gov, the EU Clinical Trials Register, and registries listed by the World Health Organization’s International Clinical Trials Registry Platform. The registry name, trial registration number, and registration date must be stated in the Institutional Review Board (IRB) statement or the methods section of the manuscript.

Purely observational studies (e.g., cohort studies, cross-sectional studies, and case–control studies) are exempt from registration requirements. However, in exceptional cases, editors may consider submissions without prior trial registration. If an exception is granted, authors must retrospectively register the trial and clearly specify the registration date and justification for the delayed registration within the methods section.

Approval from an independent local, regional, or national ethics review body does not substitute for prospective clinical trial registration. The journal reserves the right to reject manuscripts that lack appropriate trial registration.

For systematic reviews, prospective protocol registration (e.g., PROSPERO) is strongly encouraged and should be reported in the Methods section. For other study types, preregistration is recommended when applicable.

Randomized Clinical Trial Reporting Guidelines

In addition to clinical trial registration, authors reporting results from randomized clinical trials must submit a completed CONSORT 2010 checklist and flow diagram as part of the manuscript submission. Templates for these documents are available on the CONSORT website, which also provides extensions for various study designs and data types beyond two-group parallel trials. At a minimum, clinical trial reports must address all relevant items from the checklist and include a completed flow diagram.

Editorial and submission policies

When you submit a manuscript to the Eur J Clin Exp Med, we will take it to imply that the manuscript has not already been published or submitted elsewhere. If similar or related work has been published or submitted elsewhere, then you must provide a copy of this work with the submitted manuscript. You may not submit your manuscript elsewhere while it is under consideration in the Eur J Clin Exp Med. If the manuscript includes personal communications, please provide a written statement of permission from any person who is quoted. Permission by email is acceptable.

We reserve the right to reject a paper even after it has been accepted if it becomes apparent that there are serious problems with its scientific content, or our publishing policies have been violated.

Author responsibilities

Authorship provides credit for a researcher’s contributions to a study and carries accountability. Authors are expected to fulfill the criteria below (adapted from McNutt et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2018, 201715374; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1715374115):

— Each author is expected to have made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; or the creation of new software used in the work; or have drafted the work or substantively revised it
— AND to have approved the submitted version (and any substantially modified version that involves the author’s contribution to the study);
— AND to have agreed both to be personally accountable for the author’s own contributions and to ensure that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work, even ones in which the author was not personally involved, are appropriately investigated, resolved, and the resolution documented in the literature.

The Eur J Clin Exp Med does not require all authors of a research paper to sign the cover letter upon submission, nor do they impose an order on the list of authors. Submission to the Eur J Clin Exp Med is taken by the publication to mean that all the listed authors have agreed to all of the contents. The corresponding (submitting) author is responsible for having ensured that this agreement has been reached, and for managing all communication between the publication and all co-authors, before and after publication.

Author contributions statements

Authors are required to include a statement of responsibility in the manuscript (at the end of the main text, before the 'References' section) that specifies the contribution of every author. For articles with several authors, a short paragraph specifying their individual contributions must be provided. The following statements should be used: "Conceptualization, X.X. and Y.Y.; Methodology, X.X.; Software, X.X.; Validation, X.X., Y.Y. and Z.Z.; Formal Analysis, X.X.; Investigation, X.X.; Resources, X.X.; Data Curation, X.X.; Writing – Original Draft Preparation, X.X.; Writing – Review & Editing, X.X.; Visualization, X.X.; Supervision, X.X.; Project Administration, X.X.; Funding Acquisition, Y.Y.”

Corresponding author – responsibilities

The corresponding (submitting) author is solely responsible for communicating with the Eur J Clin Exp Med and for managing communication between co-authors. Before submission, the corresponding author ensures that all authors are included in the author list, its order has been agreed by all authors, and that all authors are aware that the paper was submitted.

A confidential process

The Eur J Clin Exp Med treats the submitted manuscript and all communication with authors and referees as confidential, although reviewers are aware of the authors’ identities as part of the single-blind peer review process. Authors must also treat communication with the Eur J Clin Exp Med as confidential: correspondence with the Eur J Clin Exp Med, referee reports and other confidential material must not be posted on any website or otherwise publicized without prior permission from the Eur J Clin Exp Med publishing team, regardless of whether or not the submission is eventually published. Our policies about posting preprints and accepted manuscripts, and about previous communication of the work at conferences or as part of a personal blog or of an academic thesis, are described in the journal’s Archiving policy. This confidentiality requirement does not restrict authors from sharing their own work as preprints or accepted manuscripts in accordance with the journal’s Archiving policy.

Referee suggestions

During the submission process, please suggest three potential reviewers (names and institutional e-mail addresses) with the appropriate expertise to review the manuscript, but please keep in mind that we are not obliged to follow these recommendations. The proposed referees should neither be current collaborators of the co-authors nor have published with any of the co-authors of the manuscript within the last five years. Proposed reviewers should be from different institutions to the authors. You may suggest reviewers from among the authors that you frequently cite in your paper. You may also name a limited number of scientists who should not review your paper (up to 3 named individuals or laboratories); these exclusions will be honored. The journal verifies reviewer identity and affiliation; the use of non-institutional e-mail addresses for suggested reviewers may be declined. The decision of the Editorial Board Member on the choice of referees is final.

Ethics, use of experimental animals, and human participants

For articles in the Eur J Clin Exp Med reporting experiments on live vertebrates and/or higher invertebrates, the methods section must include a statement: (i) identifying the institutional and/or licensing committee approving the experiments, including any relevant details; (ii) confirming that all experiments were performed in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations. The ethics statement must include the name of the approving ethics committee, approval or decision number, and date of approval; studies involving human participants must confirm compliance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and animal studies must comply with the ARRIVE guidelines and the principles of the 3Rs (Replacement, Reduction, Refinement).

For research involving human participants, authors must identify the committee that approved the research, confirm that all research was performed in accordance with relevant guidelines/regulations, and include in their manuscript a statement confirming that informed consent was obtained from all participants and/or their legal guardians.

Authors may be required to submit, on request, a statement from the research ethics committee or institutional review board indicating approval of the research.

Competing interests policy

In the interests of transparency and to help readers form their own judgments of potential bias, authors must declare any competing financial and/or non-financial interests related to the work described. Competing interests are defined as financial or non-financial relationships or circumstances that could directly influence, or be perceived to influence, the objectivity, integrity, or interpretation of the reported research.

Examples of potential competing interests include, but are not limited to, employment, consultancies, stock ownership or options, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patents or patent applications, and other personal or institutional relationships. Sources of research funding must be disclosed separately in the Funding statement, regardless of whether they are considered a competing interest.

Competing interests statement format guidelines

The statement included in the article file must be explicit and unambiguous, describing any potential competing interest (or lack thereof) for EACH contributing author.

Examples of declarations are:

— Competing interests: The author(s) declare no competing interests.

— Competing interests: Dr X’s work has been funded by A. He has received compensation as a member of the scientific advisory board of B and owns stock in the company. He has also consulted for C and received compensation. Dr Y and Dr Z declare no competing interests.

Funding information must be reported in a separate Funding statement and should not be included in the Competing interests declaration.

Application to Editors or Editorial Board Members

Editors and Editorial Board Members of the Eur J Clin Exp Med are required to disclose any conflicts of interest and may be excluded from the peer review process if such conflicts exist. They should also recuse themselves from handling manuscripts where a conflict of interest is present. This may include, but is not limited to, having previously co-published with one or more of the authors or being affiliated with the same institution as one or more of the authors.

If an Editor or Editorial Board Member of Eur J Clin Exp Med is listed as an author on a manuscript, it is recommended that they declare this in the competing interests section of the submission. If they are an author or have any other conflict of interest regarding a specific manuscript, another editor will be assigned to oversee the peer review process. These submissions will undergo the same review process as any other manuscript.

Editors and Editorial Board Members of Eur J Clin Exp Med are welcome to submit their own papers to the journal. These submissions receive no special priority, and the status of the Editor or Editorial Board Member does not influence the editorial consideration.

Peer-reviewers

The Eur J Clin Exp Med invites peer-reviewers to exclude themselves in cases where there is a significant conflict of interest, financial or otherwise. However, just as financial interests need not invalidate the conclusions of an article, nor do they automatically disqualify an individual from evaluating it. We ask peer-reviewers to inform the editors of any related interests, including financial interests as defined above that might be perceived as relevant. Editors will consider these statements when weighing peer-reviewers' recommendations.

Availability of materials and data

In order to maintain the integrity, transparency, and reproducibility of research records, authors are encouraged to make their experimental and research data openly available either by depositing data in repositories or by publishing the data and files as supplementary information in this journal. The journal may request access to underlying data, protocols, or original materials for editorial assessment. Where data cannot be publicly shared due to privacy, ethical, or legal restrictions, authors must describe the restrictions and provide a mechanism for qualified access where feasible.

Data may be deposited with specialized service providers or institutional/subject repositories, preferably those that use the DataCite mechanism. Large datasets and files greater than 60 MB must be deposited in this way. For a list of other repositories specialized in scientific and experimental data, please consult re3data.org and DataCite resources. The data repository name, link to the dataset (URL) and accession number, DOI or handle number of the dataset must be provided in the paper. The journal Data also accepts submissions of dataset papers.

Data availability statement format guidelines

The statement should be provided as a separate section (titled 'Data Availability') at the end of the main text, before the 'References' section. Data availability statements should include, where applicable, accession codes, other unique identifiers and associated web links for publicly available datasets, and any conditions for access of non-publicly available datasets. Where figure source data are provided, statements confirming this should be included in data availability statements. Depending on the data described in the manuscript, data availability statements commonly take one of the following forms, or can be a composite of the statements below:

— The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available in the [NAME] repository, [PERSISTENT WEB LINK TO DATASETS].
— The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
— All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article (and its Supplementary Information files).
— The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due to [REASON(S) WHY DATA ARE NOT PUBLIC] but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
— No datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.
— The data that support the findings of this study are available from [THIRD PARTY NAME] but restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license for the current study, and so are not publicly available. Data are however available from the authors upon reasonable request and with permission of [THIRD PARTY NAME].

Declaration of use of AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process

Authors are required to disclose the use of generative AI in the writing of scientific papers upon submission. This guidance applies solely to the writing process and does not pertain to the use of AI tools for data analysis or drawing insights as part of the research process.

Generative AI and AI-assisted technologies should be used in the writing process solely to enhance the readability and language of the manuscript. These tools must be employed under human supervision, with authors thoroughly reviewing and editing the output, as AI can produce seemingly credible content that may be inaccurate, incomplete, or biased. Ultimately, authors are responsible and accountable for the content of the work.

Authors should not list generative AI and AI-assisted technologies as an author or co-author, nor cite AI as an author. Authorship entails responsibilities and tasks that can solely be assigned to and carried out by humans.

The Eur J Clin Exp Med does not allow the use of generative AI or AI-assisted tools to create or modify images in submitted manuscripts. This includes activities such as enhancing, obscuring, moving, removing, or introducing specific elements within an image or figure. Adjustments to brightness, contrast, or color balance are permitted as long as they do not obscure or remove any information present in the original. Image forensics tools or specialized software may be used to detect suspected irregularities in images within submitted manuscripts. Authors must not upload confidential, personal, or patient-identifiable information to generative AI tools.

The only exception to this policy is when AI or AI-assisted tools are integral to the research design or methods, such as in AI-assisted imaging approaches used to generate or interpret the underlying research data, particularly in fields like biomedical imaging. In such cases, the use of AI must be described in a reproducible manner within the methods section. This description should include details on how the AI or AI-assisted tools were applied in the image creation or alteration process, along with the name of the model or tool, version and extension numbers, and the manufacturer.

Authors must follow the AI software’s specific usage policies and ensure proper content attribution. When applicable, authors may be required to provide pre-AI-adjusted versions of images and/or the composite raw images used to produce the final submitted versions for editorial assessment.

The use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in scientific writing should be disclosed by including a statement at the end of the manuscript when it is initially submitted.

Title of new section: Use of AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process.
Example of a statement: “During the preparation of this work the author(s) used [NAME TOOL/SERVICE] in order to [REASON]. After using this tool/service, the author(s) reviewed and edited the content as needed and take(s) full responsibility for the content of the published article.”

The declaration does not apply to the use of basic tools, such as those used for checking grammar, spelling, and references. If there is nothing to disclose, no statement is required.

NOTE: to protect authors' rights and the confidentiality of their research, the Eur J Clin Exp Med does not currently allow the use of Generative AI or AI-assisted technologies such as ChatGPT or similar services by reviewers or editors in the peer review and manuscript evaluation process. Suspected breaches may result in reviewer removal and rejection of the manuscript or other editorial actions. Moreover, editors may decline to move forward with manuscripts if AI is used inappropriately.

Correction and retraction policy

The Eur J Clin Exp Med operates the following policy for making corrections to its peer-reviewed content.

Publishable amendments must be represented by a formal online notice because they affect the publication record and/or the scientific accuracy of published information. Where these amendments concern peer-reviewed material, they fall into one of four categories: Publisher Correction (formerly Erratum), Author Correction (formerly Corrigendum), Retraction or Addendum.

Publisher Correction (formerly Erratum). Notification of an important error made by the journal that affects the publication record or the scientific integrity of the paper or the reputation of the authors or the journal.

Author Correction (formerly Corrigendum). Notification of an important error made by the author(s) that affects the publication record or the scientific integrity of the paper, or the reputation of the authors or the journal.

Retraction. Notification of invalid results. All co-authors must sign a Retraction specifying the error and stating briefly how the conclusions are affected, and submit it for publication. In cases where co-authors disagree, the in-house editors may seek advice from independent referees and impose the type of amendment that seems most appropriate, noting the dissenting author(s) in the text of the published version.

Addendum. Notification of additional information. Addenda are published when the in-house editors decide that the addendum is crucial to the reader's understanding of a significant part of the published contribution.

Expression of Concern. A notice issued when serious concerns have been raised about a publication, but an investigation is ongoing and conclusive evidence is not yet available.

Corrections, retractions, and expressions of concern are published as separate notices and are permanently linked to the original article. The online article and PDF are clearly labeled to reflect the amendment status.

Archiving policy

Articles published in Eur J Clin Exp Med are long-term deposited in the repository of the University of Rzeszów.

Authors of articles are permitted to self-archive the submitted (preprint) version of the article at any time, and may self-archive the accepted (peer-reviewed) version. The authors may also deposit the published version of the article.

On submission of the manuscript, authors may deposit the submitted version in their personal, institutional, or online preprint repository. The first page of the manuscript must clearly display the following wording: “This paper is a preprint of a paper submitted to European Journal of Clinical and Experimental Medicine (ISSN: 2544-1361)”. If the paper is rejected, authors must remove all mention of the journal.

The author may deposit the accepted manuscript of the paper (accepted version of the manuscript after peer-review and content amendments, but before copyediting, typesetting and proof correction) to the author's personal website, provided that it is non-commercial, and to the repository of the author's institution with acknowledgement of the Journal (acknowledgement should be made as follows: “This is an accepted peer-reviewed version of the paper. The published version of the article is available at European Journal of Clinical and Experimental Medicine (ISSN: 2544-1361), at https://doi.org/[DOI of the article]”.

Published version of an open-access article. The author may deposit the published version of the paper (final edited and typeset version that is made publicly available by the Publisher and can be considered an article) to any institutional repository, and distribute and make it publicly available in any way with acknowledgement to the Journal (acknowledgement should be made as follows: “This is a published version of the paper, available at European Journal of Clinical and Experimental Medicine (ISSN: 2544-1361), at https://doi.org/[DOI of the article]".

The journal ensures long-term digital preservation of the version of record through institutional repository archiving and persistent identifiers (DOIs).

Preprint policy

The Eur J Clin Exp Med permits the posting of manuscripts on recognized preprint servers prior to submission or during the peer review process. Authors must disclose the existence of any preprint version at the time of submission and provide the preprint DOI or URL.

Preprints are not considered peer-reviewed publications and must not be cited as references in manuscripts submitted to the Eur J Clin Exp Med.

Following publication in the journal, authors are encouraged to update the preprint record by providing a clear link to the final published version of record (VoR), including the article DOI.

Sponsorship and Advertising

As part of its publication policies, the Eur J Clin Exp Med does not accept commercial sponsorships or advertisements. However, the journal may post announcements on its website for non-profit scientific and educational events.

Peer-review process

Initial checks

Once submitted, your manuscript will be assigned to a member of our Editorial Board, who will read the paper and decide whether it is appropriate for the journal. Manuscripts that are within scope and seem, on initial assessment, to be technically sound and scientifically valid, will be sent to external reviewers. Copies of any papers containing similar or related work under consideration or in press at other journals must be included with the submission.

Manuscripts that do not fit the journal's ethics policy or do not meet the standards of the journal will be rejected before peer-review. Manuscripts may be rejected at the editorial screening stage due to: out-of-scope content, insufficient novelty or methodological rigor, ethical concerns, suspected misconduct, poor reporting quality, or failure to comply with author guidelines. Manuscripts that are not properly prepared will be returned to the authors for revision and resubmission.

Peer review

Once a manuscript passes the initial checks, it is assigned to at least two independent experts for peer review. The reviewers access the manuscript securely through our online system. The Eur J Clin Exp Med applies a single-blind peer review process, in which the reviewers are aware of the authors’ identities, but the authors do not know the identity of the reviewers.

Reviewers are selected by the editorial team based on their subject expertise and the absence of any conflict of interest with the authors or the submitted work. Suggested reviewers must not have co-authored publications with the authors in the last five years or be affiliated with the same institutions.

All peer review comments are treated as confidential and will only be disclosed with the explicit consent of the reviewer. Reviewers are expected to evaluate manuscripts objectively, fairly, and constructively, and to refrain from any personal criticism of the authors.

Editorial Decision

After considering the reviewer reports the Editorial Board Member will make one of the following decisions:

— Accept outright,
— Request a minor revision, where authors revise their manuscript to address specific concerns,
— Request a major revision, where authors revise their manuscript to address significant concerns and perhaps undertake additional work,
— Reject outright.

The final decision is made by the Editor-in-Chief.

Revisions

In cases where the referees or Editorial Board Member has requested changes to the manuscript, you will be invited to prepare a revision. The decision letter will specify a deadline for submission of a revised manuscript. Once resubmitted, the manuscript may then be sent back to the original referees or to new referees, at the Editorial Board Member's discretion.

A revised manuscript should be submitted via the revision link provided in the decision letter, and not as a new manuscript. Authors should attach a cover letter to explain, *point by point*, the details of the revisions to the manuscript and responses to the referees' comments. The destination of the cover letter file in the submission system is 'Supplementary File for Review'. Please ensure that all issues raised have been addressed in the first round of revision. Where the authors disagree with a reviewer, they must provide a clear response. You can use a template for responding to the reviewers’ comments

Final submission and acceptance

When all editorial issues are resolved, your paper will be formally accepted for publication. Once accepted, the manuscript will undergo professional copy-editing, English editing, final corrections, pagination, and publication on the https://www.ejcem.ur.edu.pl/. The Eur J Clin Exp Med reserves the right to make the final decision about matters of style and the size of figures.

Appeals

Even in cases where the Eur J Clin Exp Med does not invite resubmission of a manuscript, some authors may ask the Editorial Board to reconsider a rejection decision. These are considered appeals, which, by policy, must take second place to the normal workload. In practice, this means that decisions on appeals often take several weeks. Only one appeal is permitted for each manuscript, and appeals can only take place after peer review. Final decisions on appeals will be made by the Editorial Board Member handling the paper.

Decisions are reversed on appeal only if the relevant Editorial Board Member is convinced that the original decision was a serious mistake. Consideration of an appeal is merited if a referee made substantial errors of fact or showed evidence of bias, but only if a reversal of that referee's opinion would have changed the original decision. Similarly, disputes on factual issues need not be resolved unless they were critical to the outcome.

If an appeal merits further consideration, the Editorial Board Member may send the authors' response and the revised paper out for further peer review.

ORCID

The Eur J Clin Exp Med supports the use of ORCID. The Eur J Clin Exp Med mandates ORCID iDs for all submitting authors; this is published on the final article to promote discoverability and credit. Please provide the ORCID iDs of the authors in the title page.

Submission guidelines

Submission Process

Manuscripts for the Eur J Clin Exp Med should be submitted online at https://mc04.manuscriptcentral.com/pmur. The submitting author, who is generally the corresponding author, is responsible for the manuscript during the submission and peer-review process. The submitting author must ensure that all eligible co-authors have been included in the author list (read the criteria to qualify for authorship) and that they have all read and approved the submitted version of the manuscript. To submit your manuscript, register and log in to the submission website. All co-authors can see the manuscript details in the submission system, if they register and log in using the e-mail address provided during manuscript submission.

Cover letter

A cover letter must be included with each manuscript submission. It should be concise and explain why the content of the paper is significant, placing the findings in the context of existing work and why it fits the scope of the journal. Confirm that neither the manuscript nor any parts of its content are currently under consideration or published in another journal. The names of proposed and excluded reviewers should be provided in the submission system, not in the cover letter.

Accepted File Formats

Use the Microsoft Word template to prepare your manuscript [download]

Authors must use Microsoft Word to prepare their manuscript. LaTeX submissions are not accepted. Please insert your tables, graphics (schemes, figures, etc.) in the main text after the paragraph of its first citation.

In most cases, we do not impose strict limits on word count or page number. However, we strongly recommend that you write concisely and stick to the following guidelines:

— We encourage not exceeding 20 pages for original and review papers, and 8 pages for case reports of standard computer text (1800 characters on a page).
— The main text should be no more than 4,500 words (not including Abstract, References and Figure legends).
— The title should be no more than 20 words.
— The abstract should be no more than 200 words.
— Recommended font: Times New Roman, 12 points.
— Manuscript text should be double-spaced. Do not format text in multiple columns.

Types of Publications

Manuscripts submitted to the Eur J Clin Exp Med should neither be published previously nor be under consideration for publication in another journal. The main article types are as follows:

Original research manuscripts. The journal considers all original research manuscripts provided that the work reports scientifically sound experiments and provides a substantial amount of new information.

Reviews. These provide concise and precise updates on the latest progress made in a given area of research. Systematic reviews should follow the PRISMA guidelines.

The Eur J Clin Exp Med accepts also the following types of submissions: case reports, letters to the editor, commentaries, book reviews, and reports from scientific meetings and conferences.

Reporting guidelines

The guidelines listed below should be followed where appropriate. Please use these guidelines to structure your article. Completed applicable checklists, structured abstracts and flow diagrams should be uploaded with your submission.

Please refer to existing guidelines for reporting methodology; e.g.:

— AGREE guidelines for clinical practice guidelines
— ARRIVE guidelines for in vivo animal studies
— CARE guidelines for clinical case reports
— CONSORT guidelines for clinical trials
— PRISMA guidelines for systematic reviews and meta-analyses
— SPIRIT for clinical trials
— STARD guidelines for studies of diagnostic accuracy
— STROBE guidelines for observational studies

Manuscript Preparation

Your paper should consist of the following parts.

Research manuscripts should comprise:

Title page: Title, Author list, Affiliations.
Research manuscript sections: Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Aim, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions.
Back matter: Supplementary Materials, Acknowledgments, Funding Statement, Author Contributions, Conflicts of Interest, Data Availability, Ethics Approval, References.

Research manuscript sections:

Introduction

State the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.

Materials and methods

Provide sufficient details to allow the work to be reproduced by an independent researcher. Methods that are already published should be summarized, and indicated by a reference. If quoting directly from a previously published method, use quotation marks and also cite the source. Any modifications to existing methods should also be described.

Results

Results should be clear and concise. The section may be divided into subsections, each with a concise subheading. Tables and figures central to the study should be included in the main paper. Do not use the term “significant” unless p-values are provided. Show p-values to 2 or 3 decimal places. The Results section should be written in past tense.

Discussion

This should explore the significance of the results of the work, not repeat them. Avoid extensive citations and discussion of published literature.

Conclusions

Summarize the work’s findings, state their importance, and possibly recommend further research.

Review manuscripts should comprise:

Title page: Title, Author list, Affiliations.
Abstract, Keywords, Literature review sections.
Back matter: Supplementary Materials, Acknowledgments, Funding Statement, Author Contributions, Conflicts of Interest, Data Availability, References.

Structured reviews and meta-analyses should use the same structure as research articles and ensure they conform to the PRISMA guidelines.

Case reports should comprise:

Title page: Title, Author list, Affiliations.
Abstract, Keywords. Case reports should include a succinct introduction about the general medical condition or relevant symptoms that will be discussed in the case report; the case presentation including all of the relevant de-identified demographic and descriptive information about the patient(s), and a description of the symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, and outcome; a discussion providing context and any necessary explanation of specific treatment decisions; a conclusion briefly outlining the take-home message and the lessons learned.
Back matter: Supplementary Materials, Acknowledgments, Funding Statement, Author Contributions, Conflicts of Interest, Data Availability, Ethics Approval, References.

Requirements for case reports submitted to Eur J Clin Exp Med:

• Patient ethnicity must be included in the Abstract under the Case Presentation section.

• Consent for publication is a mandatory journal requirement for all case reports. Written informed consent for publication must be obtained from the patient (or their parent or legal guardian in the case of children under 18, or from the next of kin if the patient has died).

The best way to ensure you have obtained appropriate consent for publication in Eur J Clin Exp Med is to use our Eur J Clin Exp Med consent form.

Language Style

Manuscripts must be submitted in English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these).

Title page

These sections should appear in all manuscript types:

Title: The title of your manuscript should be concise and informative. It should identify if the study reports (human or animal) trial data, or is a systematic review, meta-analysis or replication study. When gene or protein names are included, the abbreviated name rather than full name should be used.

Author List and Affiliations: Authors' full first and last names must be provided. We recommend adding as primary the affiliation where most of the research was conducted or supported, but please check with your institution for any contractual agreement requirements. For each affiliation provide the details in the following order: department, institution, city, country.

It is very important that author names and affiliations are correct. Incorrect information can mean a lack of proper attribution or incorrect citation and can even lead to problems with promotion or funding. After the publication of an article, updates or corrections to the author’s address or affiliation may not be permitted.

At least one author should be designated as corresponding author, and his or her email address and other details should be included at the end of the affiliation section. Please also provide the ORCID iDs of the authors in the title page.

Independent Researcher: If one or all the authors are not currently affiliated with a university, scientific institution or company, or have not been during the development of the manuscript, they should list themselves as an “Independent Researcher”.

Abstract

The abstract should be a total of about 200 words maximum. The abstract should be a single paragraph and should follow the style of structured abstracts: Introduction and aim: Place the question addressed in a broad context and highlight the purpose of the study; Materials and methods: Describe briefly the main methods or treatments applied. Include any relevant preregistration numbers, and species and strains of any animals used. Results: Summarize the article's main findings; and Conclusion: Indicate the main conclusions or interpretations.

The abstract should not contain any undefined abbreviations or unspecified references.

Keywords

Three to six pertinent keywords need to be added after the abstract in alphabetical order. We recommend that the keywords are specific to the article, yet reasonably common within the subject discipline.

Back Matter

Supplementary materials: Describe any supplementary material published online alongside the manuscript (figure, tables, video, spreadsheets, etc.). Please indicate the name and title of each element as follows Figure S1: title, Table S1: title, etc.

Acknowledgments: Thank all of the people who helped with the research but did not qualify for authorship. Acknowledge anyone who provided intellectual assistance, technical help, or special equipment or materials.

Funding statement: Authors must disclose all sources of funding and the role of the funder(s) in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, and manuscript preparation. If the funder had no role, authors should explicitly state this.

Author contributions: Authors must supply an Author Contribution Statement as described in the Author contributions statements section

Conflicts of interest: Authors must supply a competing interests statement. For more details please see Competing interests policy.

Data availability: Authors must include a Data Availability Statement in all submitted manuscripts; see Availability of materials and data section for more information.

Ethics approval: Example of an ethical statement: “All subjects gave their informed consent for inclusion before they participated in the study. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and the protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of XXX (Project identification code).”

Use of AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process: Example of a statement: “During the preparation of this work the author(s) used [NAME TOOL/SERVICE] in order to [REASON]. After using this tool/service, the author(s) reviewed and edited the content as needed and take(s) full responsibility for the content of the published article.”

The declaration does not apply to the use of basic tools, such as those used for checking grammar, spelling, and references. If there is nothing to disclose, no statement is required.

References: References must be numbered in order of appearance in the text (including table captions and figure legends) and listed individually at the end of the manuscript. We recommend preparing the references with a bibliography software package, such as EndNote, Reference Manager or Zotero to avoid typing mistakes and duplicated references.

References style

In-text citations and references should be prepared according to the American Medical Association (AMA) style. Each item should be listed in numerical order.

In-text citations

Each reference should be cited in the text using superscript Arabic numerals. These superscript numbers should be outside periods. If you are citing sequential references, these should be indicated with a hyphen. Nonsequential references should be separated with commas. There should not be a space between numbers.

For example: The degree of respiratory muscles fatigue depends on the applied exercise protocol and the research group's fitness level.^1,2 The greatest load with which a patient continues breathing for at least one minute is a measure of inspiratory muscles strength.³Diabetes mellitus is associated with a high risk of foot ulcers.^4-6

Sample reference

In listed references, the names of all authors should be given unless there are more than 6, in which case the names of the first 3 authors are used, followed by “et al.”. If the source does not have any authors, the citation should begin with the title.

To find the proper abbreviation of a journal, go to the National Library of Medicine PubMed Journals Database at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=Journals.

Page number(s) should be inserted in full (for example: use 111–112, not 111–2). DOIs should be provided whenever available.

The following are examples of individual citations made according to the required rules of editing and punctuation:

Article from a journal, number of authors from 1 to 6

Author AA, Author BB, Author CC. Title of article. Accepted Abbreviated Journal Title. Year;Volume(Issue):Page-Page. doi (if available)

Lee JC, Seo HG, Lee WH, Kim HC, Han TR, Oh BM. Computer-assisted detection of swallowing difficulty. Comput Methods Programs Biomed. 2016;134(2):72-78. doi:10.1016/j.cmpb.2016.07.010

Morris A. New test for diabetes insipidus. Nat Rev Endocrinol. 2019;15(10):564-565. doi:10.1038/s41574-019-0247-x

Article from a journal, number of authors more than 6

Author AA, Author BB, Author CC, et al. Title of article. Accepted Abbreviated Journal Title. Year;Volume(Issue):Page-Page. doi (if available)

Gonzalez ME, Martin EE, Anwar T, et al. Mesenchymal stem cell-induced DDR2 mediates stromal-breast cancer interactions and metastasis growth. Cell Rep. 2017;18:1215-1228. doi:10.1016/j.celrep.2016.12.079

Jordan J, Toplak H, Grassi G, et al. Joint statement of the European Association for the Study of Obesity and the European Society of Hypertension: obesity and heart failure. J Hypertens. 2016;34:1678-1688. doi:10.1097/HJH.0000000000001013

Websites

Author AA (if indicated). Webpage title. Name of Website. URL. Published or Updated date. Accessed date.

Cholera in Haiti. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site. https://www.cdc.gov/haiticholera/. Published October 22, 2010. Updated January 9, 2012. Accessed February 1, 2012.

Address double burden of malnutrition: WHO. World Health Organization site. https://www.searo.who.int/mediacentre/releases/2016/1636/en/. Accessed February 2, 2017.

Book

Author AA, Author BB. Title of Work. Location: Publisher; Year:Page-Page

Doane GH, Varcoe C. Family Nursing as Relational Inquiry: Developing Health– Promoting Practice. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; 2005:25-28.

London ML, Ladewig PW, Ball JW, et al. Maternal & Child Nursing Care. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education; c2011:101-103.

Chapter in a book

Chapter Author AA. Title of chapter. In: Name of Book. Edition Number. Editor AA, ed. Location: Name of Publisher; Year:Page-Page.

Grimsey E. An overview of the breast and breast cancer. In: Breast Cancer Nursing Care and Management. 2nd ed. Harmer V, ed. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell; 2011:35-42.

Manuscripts "in press" may be included in the reference list if they have been accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal but have not yet been published in their final form, provided they are citable with a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) and the journal name is specified.

Abstracts: If citing an abstract is necessary because it contains data not published elsewhere, it must be clearly designated as such in both the text and the reference list.

The following sources should not be included in the reference list

Unpublished observations including personal communications
Submitted manuscripts and manuscripts in preparation
Preprints

NOTE: The Editorial Board requires consistent and carefully made references prepared according to the above-mentioned AMA standards. Otherwise, the work will be sent back to the authors.

Preparing Figures, Schemes and Tables

Figures and schemes must be provided during submission in sufficiently high quality (minimum 1000 pixels in either dimension or a resolution of at least 300 dpi). Common file formats are accepted; however, TIFF, JPEG, EPS, and PDF are preferred.

All figures, schemes, and tables must be embedded in the main manuscript file and placed next to the relevant text, not at the beginning or end of the document. Figure captions should be placed directly below the figure (not on the figure itself), and table titles above the table. All figures, schemes, and tables must be numbered consecutively according to their first appearance in the text (Figure 1, Scheme 1, Table 1, etc.) and must be cited in the text in numerical order.

Tables should present new information and must not duplicate content already described in the text. Each table must be understandable independently and include clear and explanatory column headings. Tables must be provided in an editable format and placed in the appropriate location within the manuscript. Tables submitted as image files (e.g., JPEG, TIFF) or as separate files will not be accepted. For large tables, smaller fonts may be used, but not smaller than 8 pt.

All text within figures and tables must be in English and remain clearly legible after reduction.

Any image manipulation that could misrepresent data (e.g., selective enhancement, splicing without disclosure) is prohibited; original/raw images may be requested for verification. The journal may conduct image integrity checks and request original, unprocessed image files.

Copyright and Permissions

All figures, schemes, and illustrations must be original or legally reusable. Authors are fully responsible for ensuring compliance with copyright regulations. Simple citation of the source (e.g., “Source: [reference]”) is not sufficient and does not constitute permission.

Figures reproduced or adapted from previously published works require explicit permission from the copyright holder, unless the original publication is licensed under a Creative Commons license permitting reuse. Reused figures must be clearly labeled in the caption as “Reproduced from” or “Adapted from”, include the full reference, and specify the applicable license or confirm that permission has been obtained. Third-party material not covered by CC BY must be clearly indicated in the caption and may require separate permission for reuse.

Submission of identical figures previously published elsewhere without documented permission constitutes a serious breach of publication ethics and may result in rejection at the editorial screening stage.

The Editorial Office reserves the right to request modification, replacement, or removal of any figure, scheme, or table that does not meet technical, ethical, or editorial standards. By submitting a manuscript, authors confirm that all figures, schemes, and tables comply with copyright requirements and that all necessary permissions have been obtained.

Persistent identifiers and metadata

The journal assigns DOIs to all published articles and deposits metadata to support indexing, citation linking, and long-term discoverability. Authors are encouraged to provide ORCID iDs and funder information to ensure accurate attribution.

Abbreviations

he journal requires using only standard abbreviations. Common abbreviations such as DNA and RNA do not require definitions. Abbreviations should be defined in parentheses the first time they appear in the abstract, main text and in figure or table captions and used consistently thereafter. Ensure consistency of abbreviations throughout the article. Use the following abbreviations for measurement units: gram (g), litre (L), milligram (mg), kilogram (kg), seconds (s), minutes (min), and hours (h). Do not add 's' to indicate plural forms of units. Keep abbreviations to a minimum.

SI Units

SI Units (International System of Units) should be used. Imperial, US customary and other units should be converted to SI units whenever possible.