Table of Content
Critical Comments in Biomedicine (CCB) is an electronic international review journal published semiannually by Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences. Review articles (including narrative reviews, systematic reviews, systematic review and meta-analyses, review of reviews), commentaries, hypotheses, letters to editors, and systematic review protocols written in the field of biomedicine are considered for publication in CCB. The journal particularly welcomes review articles with null findings and updated reviews. Although several reporting guidelines and checklists are developed to improve the reporting of systematic reviews and meta-analyses, and the majority of systematic reviews are now registered, they do not guarantee the quality of the published work, and their cautious evaluation is still needed. This is while the systematic reviews and meta-analyses published in the field of medicine are considered as the top-level evidence by researchers, professionals, and even politicians. Therefore the low-quality reviews might be misleading. Our team believes that professional journals like CCB might better evaluate such articles by gathering the experts interested in the field which makes the published evidence more reliable. The journal is dedicated to publishing review articles, only considering their quality without taking the manuscripts’ readership, their results, and the possibility of getting citations into account. CCB is an open-access journal and also does not charge a publication fee.
For New submissions, we do not require the authors to submit their manuscript in separate files. Contributors may submit their work as a single Microsoft Word document or PDF file to be used for the peer-review process. Only when the paper is at the acceptance stage, the journal assistant will ask the author to submit/send the manuscript file in their correct format needed for publication.
Critical Comments in Biomedicine (CCB) is an electronic international peer-reviewed journal published semiannually by Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences. The journal is specialized in the publication of review articles (including narrative reviews, systematic reviews, systematic reviews and meta-analyses, overviews of systematic reviews, mini-reviews), commentaries, hypotheses, letters to editors, and systematic review protocols written in the field of biomedicine. The journal particularly welcomes review articles with null findings and updated reviews.
Although several reporting guidelines and checklists are developed to improve the reporting of systematic reviews and meta-analyses, and the majority of systematic reviews are now registered, they do not guarantee the quality of the published work, and their cautious evaluation is still needed. This is while the systematic reviews and meta-analyses published in the field of medicine are considered as the top-level evidence by researchers, professionals, and even politicians. Therefore, low-quality reviews might be misleading.
Our team believes that professional journals like CCB might better evaluate such articles by gathering the experts interested in the field, which makes the published evidence more reliable. The journal is dedicated to publishing review articles, only considering their quality without taking the manuscripts’ readership, their results, and the possibility of getting citations into account.
All authors should have the following criteria: (1) Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND (2) Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND (3) Final approval of the version to be published; AND (4) Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
Changes in author list
It is expected that authors carefully consider the list and order of authors before submission and provide the list of authors at submission. Any change (addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names) in the authors’ list should be requested only before acceptance and only if approved by the journal Editor. The authors should provide a letter explaining the reason for the change in the authors’ list and that all authors agree with the change signed by all authors (the added or removed author should also sign the letter). The editor may accept the change in the authors’ list after acceptance or publication in exceptional circumstances.
Narrative reviews: Narrative reviews are primarily solicited by the editors. Unsolicited narrative reviews also will be considered for publication in CCB if the authors show that they are well experienced in the field. Both solicited and unsolicited manuscripts will be peer-reviewed before publication. Manuscripts should be organized in the following sections: Title Page; Abstract (maximum 300 words), Keywords, Introduction, Sections defined by authors, Acknowledgements, Authors’ contribution, Conflict of Interest Statement, Funding source(s), References (200 maximum); Tables, legends to figures, and figures.
Systematic reviews: Articles should be reported in accordance with preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA; URL: http://www. prisma- statement.org/) guideline. The PRISMA checklist should be submitted with the manuscript. The manuscript should be organized in the following sections, respectively: Title Page; Abstract (Background, Objectives, Methods, Results, and Conclusion; maximum 300 words), Keywords, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgements, Authors’ contribution, Conflict of Interest Statement, Funding source(s), References (200 maximum); Tables, legends to figures, and figures.
Systematic reviews and Meta-analyses: Articles should be reported in accordance
with preferred reporting items for
systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA; URL: http://www.prisma-statement. org/) guideline. The meta-analyses of observational studies should be reported in accordance with the meta-analysis of observational studies in epidemiology (MOOSE; URL: https://www.equator-network.org /reporting-guidelines/meta-analysis-of- observa tional-studies-in-epidemiology-a-proposal- for-reporting-meta-analysis-of-observational-studies-in-epidemiology-moose-group/) guideline. The PRISMA or MOOSE checklist should be submitted with the manuscript. The manuscript should be organized in the following sections, respectively: Title Page; Abstract (Background, Objectives, Methods, Results, and Conclusion; maximum 300 words), Keywords, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgements, Authors’ contribution, Conflict of Interest Statement, Funding source(s), References (200 maximum); Tables, legends to figures, and figures.
Overview of systematic reviews: Articles are encouraged to be reported in accordance with Preferred reporting items for overviews of systematic reviews (DOI: 10.1016/j.jclinepi. 2017.10.002) guideline. The manuscript should be organized in the following sections, respectively: Title Page; Abstract (Background, Objectives, Methods, Results, and
Conclusion; maximum 300 words), Keywords, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgements, Authors’ contribution, Conflict of Interest Statement, Funding source(s), References (200 maximum); Tables, legends to figures, and figures.
Systematic reviews and Meta-analyses protocols: Articles should be reported in accordance with preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses protocols (PRISMA-P; URL: http://www.prisma-statement.org/Extensions/Protocols.aspx) guideline. The PRISMA-P checklist should be submitted with the manuscript. The manuscript should be organized in the following sections, respectively: Title Page; Abstract (Background, Objectives, Methods, Results, and Conclusion; maximum 300 words), Keywords, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgements, Authors’ contribution, Conflict of Interest Statement, Funding source(s), References (200 maximum); Tables, legends to figures, and figures.
Mini-Reviews: Mini-Reviews must be written by the expert authors for the topic of the manuscript. The manuscript should be organized in the following sections: Title Page; Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Sections defined by authors, Acknowledgements, Authors’ contribution, Conflict of Interest Statement, Funding source(s), References; Tables, legends to figures, and figures. Mini-review abstracts should not exceed 100 words and the main text should be between 1,000 and 1,500 words and have no more than 25 references.
Letter to the Editor: The text, not including references, must not exceed 1000 words. The references must not be more than 20 references. If a letter refers to an article published in CCB, the authors of the original work will have the opportunity to reply. The reply will be published along with the letter. It is encouraged that authors start the letter with "Dear Editor".
Commentaries: The text, not including references, must not exceed 2000 words. The references must not be more than 30.
Editorials: These articles are submitted by CCB’s editorial board or are invited by the editorial board members.
Hypothesis: These articles should be short articles.
Educational Papers or guidelines: The manuscript should be organized in the following sections, respectively: Title Page; Abstract (Background, Objectives, Methods, Results, and Conclusion; maximum 300 words). Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgements, Authors’ contribution, Conflict of Interest Statement, Funding source(s), References (200 maximum); Tables, legends to figures, and figures.
Please use the list provided in below to carry out a final check of your submission before you submit it to the journal for review:
-One author should be introduced as the corresponding author [working E-mail address (es) (academic email address is recommended) and Full postal address should be provided in the title page].
Please ensure that all necessary files have been uploaded:
-Cover letter: The authors should submit a cover letter and describe the importance of the submitted work and confirm that the manuscript is original and is solely submitted to CCB and is not currently under consideration or previously published elsewhere. Also, the corresponding author(s) should state any contributor who met the authorship criteria was included in the authors' list.
-Manuscript file: Manuscripts must be written in English. The text should be provided in a format compatible with Microsoft Word (PC). The manuscript must be double-spaced and typed with "Times New Roman" font, size 14 Bold for the title, 12 Bold for subtitles, and 12 for the text. Abbreviations should be defined when they first occur in the abstract, in the text, and also in tables and figure legends.
-Title page: The first page should include a short and precise title and a running head. List all the authors’ names with their affiliations that provide the department, university, or organization and its location, city, and country. Also, insert the full address of the corresponding author(s), including postal address, telephone number or fax, and e-mail address. The title page should be submitted as a separate file.
- What is already known? /What this study adds? CCB requests authors to briefly describe what is already known and also what this study adds in a separate section right after the title page (this section should be no more than 200 words)
-Abstract: CCB uses a structured abstract style. The aim, methods, principal results and major conclusions should be included in the abstract. Also, the abstract must contain no undefined acronyms, abbreviations, and references.
-Keywords: Please provide 3 to 5 keywords or phrases.
-Body: Please refer to the related-article type in the authors' guidelines.
-Acknowledgments: Please, list any individual who does not have the authorship criteria in the acknowledgments section.
-Authors’ contribution: Authors are required to explain their contribution to the article. Every author must have participated in the research and drafting of the manuscript; therefore, roles for all authors should be provided. Authors should confirm that all authors have approved the final article and include in the disclosure.
- Conflict of interest statement: Please disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people, factory, or organizations which could be effective in your work.
- Funding source: Authors are asked to explain who provided the financial support for the study. The funder might support the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the manuscript. All authors should have a "Funding Source" section and the authors should describe the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in the design; data collection, data analysis, interpretation of results, writing of the manuscript, etc. It should be stated even if the funding source(s) had no such involvement.
- Tables and figure: Please ensure that all figures and tables are cited in the text and their files are provided. Please provide high-quality figures and indicate if color should be used for any figures. Figure legends should be cited in the manuscript after the reference list.
- References: Please make sure that all references cited in the text and also include in the reference list. We do not request a strict format for reference formatting at submission. References can be included in the manuscript in any style or format. We encourage authors to use reference formatting software like Endnote and Mendeley. The Endnote style file is accessible by clicking on the provided links. The author(s) name(s), journal title/book title, chapter title/article title, year of publication, volume number/book chapter, and the pagination should be provided. Including DOI in the reference list is highly encouraged. The journal’s reference style will be applied by the production team at the proof stage.
Authors have to cite the references in the text by Arabic numerals and numbered in the order of appearance. The citation should be in brackets and italic. Example: [1] and [2, 3], and the reference section should be placed after the manuscript text and before tables and figure legends. Following the sample formats given below. Please use Abbreviate journal titles according to the list of Journals Indexed in Index Medicus (available from the Superintendent of Documents, US Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402, USA, DHEW Publication No. (NIH) 91-267; ISSN 0093-3821). The titles should be written in Bold and journal names should be in Italic. Provide all authors' names if the number of authors is six or lower. Please provide the first six authors following with et al. if the references have more than 6 authors. Provide article titles and inclusive pages. 'Unpublished data' and 'personal communications' should not be provided in the references section. Please mention them in parentheses in the text. The authors are responsible to provide accurate references. Authors should not refer to secondary sources. The authors might submit the manuscript with the Vancouver style. The reference style will be changed by the production team upon acceptance. We encourage authors to provide references using reference managing software (Endnote and Mendeley are recommended). The reference style for Endnote is also provided here.
Sample References
Article in a journal: [1] Hossein Rouhani M, Mortazavi Najafabadi M, Esmaillzadeh A, Feizi A, Azadbakht L. Direct association between high fat dietary pattern and risk of being in the higher stages of chronic kidney disease. Int J Vitam Nutr Res. 2019:1-1010.1024/0300-9831/a000260.
[2] Mohammadi M, Ramezani-Jolfaie N, Lorzadeh E, Khoshbakht Y, Salehi-Abargouei A. Hesperidin, a major flavonoid in orange juice, might not affect lipid profile and blood pressure: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled clinical trials. Phytother Res. 2019;33: 534- 4510.1002/ ptr.6264.
[3] Sakhaei R, Ramezani-Jolfaie N, Mohammadi M, Salehi-Abargouei A. The healthy Nordic dietary pattern has no effect on inflammatory markers: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled clinical trials. Nutrition. 2019;58:140-810.1016/ j.nut. 2018 .06.020.
[4] Saneei P, Salehi-Abargouei A, Esmaillzadeh A, Azadbakht L. Influence of Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet on blood pressure: a systematic review and meta-analysis on randomized controlled trials. Nutr Metab Cardiovasc Dis. 2014;24:1253-6110.1016/ j.numecd. 2014. 06.008.
Book
[1] Oades RD. Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) and the hyperkinetic syndrome (HKS): current ideas and ways forward. New York: Nova Science Publishers; 2006
Chapter in a book
[1] Willett W, Sampson L. Foods and Nutrients. In: Willett W, editor. Nutritional epidemiology. Third edition. ed. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press; 2013. p. 17-33
Webpage
[1] World Health Organization. Diabetes. World Health Organization; https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/diabetes. Access date: 19 April 2019
- The international committee of medical journal editors (ICMJE) conflict of interest form: The form should be downloaded and filled by all authors. The corresponding author is responsible to submit the forms with the manuscript.
- Supplementary files (where applicable): Supplementary materials such as tables, figures, etc. can be published with your article to improve it. The supplementary items will be published exactly as they are received (Excel or PowerPoint files will appear as such online). Please submit your material with the article and supply a concise, descriptive caption for each supplementary item. If you wish to make changes to supplementary material during any stage of the process, please make sure to provide an updated file.
Please also ensure that:
- The manuscript has been checked for possible grammatical and spelling errors.
- Keywords are used for indexing purposes. Each manuscript should provide 3 to 5 keywords according to the Medical Subject Headings, MESH (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/ MBrowser.html).
- All references are correctly cited
- Permissions for copyrighted material are obtained from other sources
- The conflict of interest is declared, even if the authors have no conflict of interest to report. The international committee of medical journal editors (ICMJE) conflict of interest form filled by each author should be uploaded with the manuscript. The conflict of interest form can be downloaded from this link.
- The Manuscript text should be double-spaced.
- Lines should be numbered continuously, from beginning in the title page up to the end of references.
- The standard and non-standard abbreviations should be explained in the text (as well as Tables and Figures). The abbreviations should not be used in the title. The terms or phrases of abbreviations should be spelled out at the first usage inside either abstract or text body and the abbreviation should immediately appear in parenthesis. No needs to mention the full words of standard units of measurement. The authors should mention any abbreviations and acronyms used at least three times in the manuscript on the title page. If the manuscript is accepted, the list of abbreviations and acronyms will be included on the first page of the article.
Ethics in publishing
The manuscripts will be checked for their originality and plagiarism. Although it is not mandatory, CCB encourages the authors to obtain a code of ethics from their institution for their work and provide the code in the text.
CCB journal operates a double-blind peer review. Neither the peer reviewers nor the authors are revealed to each other. Authors may suggest preferred and non-preferred reviewers during manuscript submission. However, the ultimate selection of the reviewers will be determined by the editor(s).
The editor checks the overall quality of the manuscript and makes the decision to send the manuscript for peer review. The manuscripts will be sent to at least two independent expert reviewers to check the scientific quality of the paper. The Editor is responsible for the final decision. The decision is final.
Supplementary materials
Supplementary materials such as tables, figures, etc. can be published with your article to improve it. The supplementary items will be published exactly as they are received (Excel or PowerPoint files will appear as such online). Please submit your material with the article and supply a concise, descriptive caption for each supplementary item. If you wish to make changes to supplementary material during any stage of the process, please make sure to provide an updated file.
Peer review process
Each received manuscript will be initially evaluated in terms of quality, innovation, the importance of the issue, and compliance with the journal's standards by the editors to save the authors and reviewers' time. In a maximum of 7 days, the authors will receive an e-mail containing the rejection or initial acceptance of their manuscript. Then, in the case that the manuscript meets the standards, it enters the double-blind peer-review process.
Each manuscript is sent to two specialized reviewers, if the reviewers differently respond to a manuscript, the manuscript will be sent to the third reviewer. Manuscripts may also be sent to a statistical specialist if needed.
Please note that:
- If the manuscript is not related to the journal's field of study, it will be rejected.
- The reviewers must have an advanced level of language proficiency and a high level of scientific competence in the subject area.
- The criteria for selecting the international reviewers include having appropriate experience in reviewing the related review articles.
- Authors can suggest the journal to send the manuscript to some specific reviewers or ask the journal to avoid selecting some reviewers (by mentioning their names) by mentioning the reason in the cover letter.
- All manuscripts are investigated through a double-blind peer-review process, while the authors and referees do not know each other.
- The final decision on all manuscripts is made by the editor-in-chief.
- The journal is committed to making quick decisions on manuscripts. We believe that an efficient writing process is a valuable service for authors and the scientific community, in general.
- If authors believe that the journal rejected their manuscript due to errors or misunderstandings of the scientific content, they can send an appeal to the journal's office using the journal's e-mail.
The manuscript may be returned to the corresponding author for modification of the scientific content and/or for language editions.
- The authors should highlight their edits within the text.
- The authors should send a letter in response to the reviewers' comments along with their edited manuscript.
- In the case that authors do not send their edited manuscript to the journal within two months, the revised manuscript will be considered as a new manuscript. So, the date of receipt will be corrected accordingly.
- If authors wish to re-submit a previously rejected article, they should also submit the original manuscript along with a letter about the details of changes.
- The editing process of the manuscript may be conducted in several steps.
The final version of the manuscript, before publication, will be sent to the corresponding author to check any possible typographical errors and other minor changes to avoid any mistakes. At this point, major changes are not accepted in the text. At this stage, authors should send the final proof to the editor-in-chief within two days.
The process to Manage Research and Publication Misconduct
The editorial board will incessantly work towards the observing publication misconduct such as redundant (duplicate) publication, plagiarism, fraudulent or fabricated data, changes in authorship, undisclosed conflict of interest, ethical problems with a submitted manuscript, a reviewer who has appropriated an author’s idea or data, complaints against editors, etc. When the journal faces suspected cases of research and publication misconduct, the resolving process will be followed by guidelines provided by the "Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)". The complete guidelines appear on the COPE website: https://publicationethics.org/.
The articles Published by CCB are archived on our website and also in multiple international databases around the world to increase visibility and long-term digital preservation. All journal issues are archived in the library of the School of Public Health, Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran.
The Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences is the copyright owner of the published material. However, according to Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing, all works published in this journal are open access and immediately available to anyone on the web site of the journal without cost. You may not modify, copy, distribute, transmit, display, or publish any materials contained on the Journal without the prior written permission of it or appropriate copyright owner.
Copyright and Licensing
Articles are published under the Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license in CCB.