Brazilian Journal of Cardiovascular Surgery (BJCVS) is the official journal of the Brazilian Society of Cardiovascular Surgery (SBCCV). BJCVS is a bimonthly, peer-reviewed scientific journal, with regular circulation since 1986.

BJCVS aims to record the scientific and innovation production in cardiovascular surgery and promote study, improvement and professional updating in the specialty. It has significant impact on cardiovascular surgery practice and related areas.

BJCVS follows the recommendations (Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals) of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), from the Council of Science Editors (CSE) and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).

Manuscripts submitted for publication in BJCVS should cover topics related to cardiovascular surgery and related areas. The journal publishes the following article categories: Original Articles, Review Articles, Brief  Communication, How To Do It, Multimedia, Letter to the Editor, Editorial, and Guidelines.

Acceptance will be based on originality, relevance and scientific contribution. Articles with merely advertising or commercial purposes will not be accepted.
Articles should be submitted only in English, using simple and accurate language and avoiding the informality of colloquialism. Only manuscripts whose data are not being evaluated by other journals and/or not previously published will be considered for evaluation.

Accepted articles are published in full text at www.bjcvs.org and SciELO, with specific links on SBCCV and CTSNET websites immediately after acceptance (ahead of print). All content published on BJCVS is under license from Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY 4.0, ). BJCVS does not charge any fees for article submission, evaluation, review, distribution or download.

BJCVS, aware of the importance of disseminating the published articles, is indexed in major international databases: Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics), PubMed Central, PubMed/MEDLINE, SCOPUS (SCImago), ProQuest, Latindex, Redalyc, EBSCO and Google Scholar, in addition to LILACS and SciELO databases.

Human subject research should be submitted to the Institutional Ethics Committee in accordance with the 1975 Declaration of Helsinki, revised in 2013 (World Medical Association, available at: https://www.wma.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/DoH-Oct2013-JAMA.pdf) and Brazilian National Health Council Resolution 466/2012, available at: http://bvsms.saude.gov.br/bvs/saudelegis/cns/2013/res0466_12_12_2012.html.

Manuscripts should be accompanied by a statement that the research was conducted with the informed and appropriate consent of each participant. Written consent must be obtained from the patient (legal guardian or executor, if appropriate) for the publication of any detail or photograph that may identify an individual.

In experimental works involving animals, the rules set forth in the 1996 Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (Institute of Laboratory Animal Resources, Washington, DC, US) and the Brazilian Directive for the Care and Use of Animals for Scientific and Didactic Purposes (DBCA), of the National Council for Animal Experimentation Control – CONCEA, of 2013, must be observed.

BJCVS supports the COPE, CSE and WAME guidelines regarding ethical standards for publishing: plagiarism, duplicate and redundant publication, data fabrication, and corrections and retractions. Any cases of misconduct will be handled with appropriate sanctions established by the Editorial Board.

• Plagiarism: It consists in appropriating someone else's ideas, processes, results or words without giving appropriate credits. Authors are responsible for the content of their manuscripts. BJCVS uses Similarity Check software, which allows to detect similarities in the submitted materials. Manuscripts that have been plagiarized will be rejected and authors may incur penalties determined by the Editorial Board.
• Duplicate and Redundant Publication: BJCVS commits to publish only original material, i.e., material that has not been previously published or under review in other journals, including languages other than English. Articles submitted to BJCVS should not be submitted to any other journal while still under consideration. Duplicate publication refers to the practice of submitting the same study in two or more journals, and redundant publication consists of improperly dividing study results into more than one article (also known as salami publication), which may result in article rejection or retraction and authors may incur penalties determined by the BJCVS Editorial Board.
• Data Fabrication and Data Falsification: If image manipulation fraud, data fabrication or data falsification is identified, the manuscript will be summarily excluded from the evaluation process and authors may incur penalties determined by the Editorial Board.
• Corrections and Retractions: Errors or failures, regardless of their nature or origin, that do not constitute misconduct will be corrected by erratum. In articles already published in which misconduct has been identified, retraction will be made stating the reason for the retraction properly referenced. All authors will be asked to agree to the content.
• Conflict of Interest Statement: BJCVS requests that all authors declare any financial, personal, or organizational relationships that may inappropriately influence (bias) their work. Authors must disclose a possible conflict of interest, in addition to the liability of any violation. For more information on conflict of interest, BJCVS recommends consulting the ICMJE (http://www.icmje.org/conflicts-of-interest/) and WAME (http://wame.org/wame-editorial-on-conflict-of-interest) guidelines.

Conflicts include:

• Financial: Financing and other payments, goods and services received or expected by the authors related to the subject matter of the work or an organization interested in the outcome of the work.
• Affiliations: Employment, membership of the advisory board or affiliation to organizations interested in the outcome of the work.
• Intellectual property: Patents or trademarks owned by someone or their organization.
• Personal: Friends, family, relationships, and other close personal connections.
• Ideological: Beliefs or activism, e.g., political or religious, relevant to the work.
• Academic: Competitors or someone whose work is criticized.

If there is no conflict, the authors must declare no conflict of interest.

The conflict of interest statement must be informed at the time of manuscript submission in ScholarOne Manuscripts.

• Authors' Statement: authors should ensure that the article is an original work without data fabrication, fraud or plagiarism; does not infringe any copyright or third-party proprietary rights. The author retains unrestricted copyright and all publication rights, even if, when submitting his/her article to the journal, he/she guarantees that the work has not been previously published or is under review/evaluation by any other journal. Authors should also ensure that each author has complied with the authorship requirements as recommended by ICMJE (see Manuscript Preparation section) and understand that, if the article or part of it is flawed or fraudulent, each author shares responsibility.
• Sanctions: Practices that harm scientific integrity such as Plagiarism, Self-Plagiarism, Duplicate Publication and Redundant Publication will be taken for evaluation by the Editorial Board for decision on penalties such as suspension for a period determined by the Editorial Board. Authors will be immediately notified of all steps of this process.

Maximum Title length (words)

40

Running title (words)

12

Maximum Abstract length (words)

250

Maximum length excluding Abstract, tables, figures and references (words)

5.000

Maximum number of figures and tables

08

Maximum number of references

25

Maximum Title length (words)

40

Running title (words)

12

Maximum Abstract length (words)

250

Maximum length excluding Abstract, tables, figures and references (words)

6.500

Maximum number of figures and tables

08

Maximum number of references

75

Maximum Title length (words)

40

Running title (words)

12

Maximum Abstract length

100

Maximum length excluding Abstract, tables, figures and references (words)

1.500

Maximum number of figures and tables

02

Maximum number of references

20

Maximum Title length (words)

40

Running title (words)

12

Maximum Abstract length (words)

100

Maximum length excluding Abstract, tables, figures and references (words)

1.500

Maximum number of figures and tables

08

Maximum number of references

10

Maximum Title length (words)

40

Running title (words)

12

Maximum length excluding Abstract, tables, figures and references (words)

1.500

Maximum number of videos

02

Maximum number of figures

04

Maximum number of references

08

Maximum Title length (words)

40

Running title (words)

12

Maximum length excluding Abstract and references (words)

1.000

Maximum number of references

06

The manuscript must be sent in a Microsoft Office Word file, with mandatory configuration of A4 paper size (210 × 297 mm) and 2 cm margins on all sides, font Times New Roman size 12 and 1.5 line spacing.

The Cover Letter should be sent separately from the manuscript, included directly via ScholarOne Manuscripts and should state the reasons why the BJCVS was selected for submission, including mentioning the manuscript's scientific contributions to the topic.

BJCVS adopts the double-blind peer review process and consists of three or more referees appointed to review the manuscripts. The identities of reviewers and authors are hidden from each other throughout the review process. To facilitate the submission process, BJCVS recommends that authors prepare their manuscripts in separate files as follows:

Title Page:

• 1. Title and Authorship:

• The title of the manuscript must be written in English, be concise and informative and have a maximum of 40 words.
• The running title must be informed and have 12 words.
• Titles that need to be extended should be submitted for approval by the Editor-in-Chief.
• Full name and respective academic position or professional affiliations of the authors. Each author's affiliation must contain the following information: university, department, city, zip code, country, email and ORCID (all authors must have the Open Researcher and Contributor ID – ORCID – https://orcid.org/signin).
• A corresponding author must be designated.

• Authors' Responsibility: It is mandatory that each author attests to have participated sufficiently in the work to assume responsibility for a significant portion of the manuscript's content. Each of the authors must specify their contributions to the work. The corresponding author or submitting author will indicate during the submission process the warranty and accuracy of the integrity of all data reported in the manuscript. Except for new technology articles, statements regarding scientific responsibility do not appear in the published manuscript.

BJCVS recommends that authorship be based on the following four 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;
  3. Final approval of the version to be published; and
  4.Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that issues related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

 

All contributors who do not meet the authorship criteria should be listed in the Acknowledgments section, as well as financial support from funding agencies.

2. Manuscript Structure

• Papers should be divided according to the study design and follow Equator Network recommendations (https://www.equator-network.org/):
  • Original Article and Review Article: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, Funding (if any), Acknowledgments and References.
  • Brief  Communication: Introduction, Comments and References.
  • How To Do It: Introduction, Technique, Discussion, Conclusion and References.
  • Multimedia: Case Presentation, Technical Description, Comment and References.
  • Letter to the Editor, Editorial and Guidelines: May be structured into sections at the author's discretion.

Manuscript Structure (Checklist)

• Abstract: should be structured in four sections: Introduction, Methods, Results and Conclusion. Avoid abbreviations and acronyms. The maximum number of words should follow the recommendations for the type of manuscript. In How To Do It and Brief Communication types, Abstracts should not be structured. The Multimedia type does not require an Abstract.
• Keywords: Three to five descriptors in English should also be included. Descriptors can be found at the following websites: https://meshb.nlm.nih.gov/MeSHonDemand or http://decs.bvs.br.
• Abbreviations and Terminology: The use of abbreviations should be minimal. When long expressions need to be repeated, it is recommended that their initials in capital letters replace them after the first mention. This should be followed by the initials in parentheses. All abbreviations in tables and figures should be defined in the table note or figure caption. The BJCVS adopts the Terminologia Anatomica, 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: All research funding sources (if any), as well as the project number and the institution involved, must be stated. The role of funding agencies in study design and data collection, analysis and interpretation, and manuscript writing should be stated in Acknowledgments.
• Acknowledgments: All contributors who have made substantial contributions to the manuscript (e.g. data collection, analysis and writing, or editing assistance) but who do not meet the authorship criteria should be nominated with their specific contributions in Acknowledgments in the manuscript.
• References: The references of printed and electronic documents must be standardized according to the Vancouver citing and referencing style, developed by the ICMJE. Examples of Vancouver style are available on the National Library of Medicine (NLM) website at Citing Medicine: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7256/.

References should be identified in the body of the text with superscript Arabic numerals, in square brackets, following the order in which they appear in the text. The accuracy of references is the responsibility of authors.

• More than two consecutive references should be presented as a range separated by a dash (example: [6-9]). Non-consecutive references should be separated by commas (example: [6,7,9]).
• In publications with up to 6 authors, all should be listed; in publications with more than 6 authors, the first 6 are listed, followed by the Latin expression “et al.”.
• Journal titles should be abbreviated according to the List of Journals Indexed for MEDLINE (available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog).
• Avoid citations of theses, dissertations, books and non-scientific publications (magazines) and publications in press, except when dealing with theoretical references (example: Handbook Cochrane).
• BJCVS supports the use of digital object identifier (DOI), as it guarantees a permanent access link to the electronic article.

• Common Reference Examples:
  • Articles with DOI:

Pieczkoski SM, Margarites AGF, Sbruzzi G. Noninvasive ventilation during immediate postoperative period in cardiac surgery patients: systematic review and meta-analysis. Braz J Cardiovasc Surg. 2017 Jul-Aug;32(4):301-311. doi:10.21470/1678-9741-2017-0032.

• Electronic articles:

Zanetti BF, Gomes WJ, Han SW. Identification, selection, and enrichment of cardiomyocyte precursors. Biomed Res Int [Internet]. 2013 [cited 2019 Jan 5];2013:390789. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3703389/

• Books:

Jenkins PF. Making sense of the chest x-ray: a hands-on guide. New York: Oxford University Press; 2005. 194 p.

• Books on the Internet:

Higgins JP, Green S, editors. Cochrane handbook for systematic reviews of interventions [Internet]. Version 4.2.6. Chichester (UK): John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.; 2006 [cited 2018 Out 15]. 257 p. Available from: http://www.cochrane.org/resources/handbook/handbook.pdf

• Tables and Figures: Tables and Figures should be cited in the text in numerical order, contain a title and sent in separate files. Tables should not contain data already mentioned in the text. They should be open on the sides and with a completely white background. The abbreviations used in tables should be defined in alphabetical order, in the footnote. Similarly, the abbreviations used in the figures should be defined in the captions. Only TIFF or JPEG format images with a minimum resolution depending on the image type will be accepted for both black and white and color images: 1200 dpi for simple black and white graphics, 300 dpi for black and white photographs and 600 dpi for color photographs. BJCVS requests that the authors keep the original images, because if the images submitted online present any impediment to printing, we will ask you to send these originals.
• Videos: Video files can be submitted via ScholarOne Manuscripts as “Supplementary File” along with the article. The digital formats accepted are MP3 or MP4. Regarding content, contributors should be succinct, and the editors reserve the right to require a shorter video length. Video files should be of high quality (both in content and sharpness) and must demonstrate the characteristics described in the text of the manuscript. In addition, video stream content must directly follow the video caption content. The video should not display explicit advertising for a product. Educational presentations are encouraged.

BJCVS suggests that patients cannot be identified in the videos. The Editors reserve the right to request additional video editing by the authors prior to publication.

BJCVS adopts the double-blind peer review process, i.e., three or more referees are appointed to assess the submitted papers. The identities of reviewers and authors are hidden from each other throughout the consideration process.

If the Editor-in-Chief or Associate Editor considers that the manuscript does not meet the journal’s requirements to pass through the peer review process, or that the subject of the manuscript is outside the scope of the journal, the manuscript should be rejected without review.

All scientific contributions are reviewed by Editor-in-Chief, Associate/Area Editors, Editorial Board members and/or Reviewers Invited, with the following processes: