ARQUIVOS BRASILEIROS DE CARDIOLOGIA (BRAZILIAN ARCHIVES OF CARDIOLOGY) GUIDELINES FOR PUBLICATION 1. The Brazilian Archives of Cardiology (Arq Bras Cardiol) is a monthly publication of the Brazilian Society of Cardiology, indexed in the Cumulated Index Medicus of the National Library of Medicine and the MEDLINE, EMBASE, LILACS, Scopus and SciELO databases, with PubMed (United States National Library of Medicine) citation in English and Portuguese. 2. By submitting a manuscript, the authors must certify that the work has not been previously published or is being considered for publication elsewhere. All scientific contributions are reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief, the Editorial Advisor, Associate Editors and the Members of the Editorial Board. Only articles that strictly comply with the specified guidelines will be sent to reviewers. Manuscripts will also undergo statistical review, as necessary. Acceptance is contingent upon originality, significance and scientific contribution to knowledge in the field. 3. Sections 3.1. Editorial: All Editorials are written by invitation. Spontaneously submitted editorials will not be accepted. 3.2. Letter to the Editor: correspondence of scientific content related to articles published in the previous two months will be evaluated for publication. The authors of the quoted original article will be invited to respond. 3.3. Original Articles: the journal accepts all kinds of original research in the cardiovascular field, including research in humans and experimental research. 3.4. Review Articles: editors invite authors to write most reviews. However, high-quality review articles, by authors or groups with a history of publications in the field are welcome. Only articles written by authors with a broad academic curriculum or publication experience will be accepted, as verified by the Lattes system (CNPQ), Pubmed or SCIELO. Occasionally, spontaneously submitted reviews may be reclassified as "Clinical Update" and published on the journal's web site (see below). 3.5. Brief Communication: original experiences, of which relevance to the theme justifies the presentation of initial data from small series or partial data from clinical trials, will be accepted for review.
3.6. Anatomo-Clinical Correlation: presentation of a clinical case and discussion of topics of interest related to clinical, laboratory and anatomopathological content. 3.7. Clinical-Radiographic Correlation: presentation of a congenital heart disease case, emphasizing the importance of radiographic and/or clinical elements for subsequent correlation with other tests, which will confirm the diagnosis, thus justifying the conduct. 3.8. Clinical Update: this section aims to focus on themes of clinical interest, but with more limited impact potential. High-quality articles, performed by authors or groups with a history of publications in the area will be accepted for review. 3.9. Case Report: cases that include original descriptions of clinical observations or that represent originality of a diagnosis or treatment, or depict uncommon situations in clinical practice, and deserve greater understanding and attention from cardiologists will be accepted for review. 3.10. Cardiovascular Image: clinical or basic research images, or of complementary examinations that depict interesting aspects of imaging methods, clarify cardiovascular disease mechanisms and highlight relevant points of physiopathology, diagnosis, or treatment will be considered for publication. 3.11. Point of View: it presents the authors position or opinion on a specific scientific topic. This position or opinion should be adequately substantiated in literature or on their personal experience, aspects that will be the basis for the opinion to be given. 4. Submission process: Manuscripts should be submitted via internet and system, available at: http://www.arquivosonline.com.br/2013/submissao 5. All articles must be accompanied by a cover letter to the editor, indicating the section to which the article is being submitted (see list above) and author s statement that all coauthors are in agreement with the content of the article, declaring the existence or not of *conflicts of interest and lack of associated ethical problems. 6. All manuscripts are considered for publication as soon as possible; however, works that require special review for expedited review process ("fast-track") should be indicated in the submission letter to the editor. 7. Text and tables should be edited in Word and figures and illustrations should be attached in separate files in the appropriate area of the system. All figures should be in.jpg format with a minimum resolution of 300 DPI. The Standards for Formatting Tables, Figures and Charts are found in
http://www.arquivosonline.com.br/publicacao/informacoes_autores.asp/ http://publicacoes.cardiol.br/pub_abc/autor/pdf/manual_de_formatacao_abc.pdf 8. Conflict of interest: when there is some association between authors and any public or private entity that can originate a conflict of interest, this possibility should be notified and informed at the end of the article. Send a Declaration of Potential Conflict of Interest to revista@cardiol.br and include the manuscript number in the subject line. Access: http://www.arquivosonline.com.br/pdf/conflito_de_interesse_abc_2013.pdf 9. Author s contribution form: the corresponding author must complete, sign and send by email (to revista@cardiol.br - include manuscript number in the subject line) the forms, explaining the contributions of all authors, which will be reported at the end of the article. Access: http://www.arquivosonline.com.br/pdf/formulario_contribuicao_abc_2013.pdf 10. Copyright: the authors of accepted articles must send a statement of copyright transfer to the Archives, before the publication, signed by all coauthors (fill out the form at http://publicacoes.cardiol.br/pub_abc/autor/pdf/transferencia_de_direitos_autorais.pdf and send it to revista@cardiol.br, including the manuscript number in the subject line). 11. Ethics 11.1. The authors must disclose, in the manuscript and/or in the article file, whether the study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the institution in compliance with the Declaration of Helsinki. 11.2. In experimental studies involving animals, the standards set out in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (Institute for Laboratory Animal Research, National Academy of Sciences, Washington D.C., 2011) and Ethical Principles on Animal Experimentation of the National Animal Control Council (CONCEA) must be respected. 11.3. In experimental studies involving human subjects, authors must indicate whether the procedures followed the ethical standards of the committee responsible for human experimentation (institutional and national) and the Declaration of Helsinki of 1975, revised in 2008. If there is any doubt regarding the study performance in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration, the authors must explain the reasons for their approach and demonstrate that the institutional review body explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study. Studies in human subjects must be in accordance with the ethical standards and contain the participants free and informed consent according to Resolution 196/96 of the National Board of Health, Ministry of Health (Brazil), which
deals with the Code of Ethics for Research in Human Subjects and, for authors outside Brazil, they must comply with Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). 12. Clinical trials 12.1. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and the World Health Organization (WHO) believe that it is important to promote a comprehensive and publicly available clinical trial database. The ICMJE defines a clinical trial as any research project that prospectively assigns human beings to intervention or simultaneous comparison or control groups to study the cause and effect association between a medical intervention and a health-related outcome. Medical interventions include drugs, surgical procedures, devices, behavioral treatments, changes in the care process and others. 12.2. The study registration number should be published at the end of the summary. Any registration that meets the ICMJE requirements will be accepted; e.g., http://clinicaltrials.gov/. A complete list of all registries of clinical trials can be found at: http://www.who.int/ictrp/network/primary/en/index.html. 12.3. Clinical trials must follow the CONSORT STATEMENT rules in its presentation. Access http://www.consort-statement.org/consort-statement/ 13. Bibliographic references: the Archives adopt the Vancouver style - Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (www.icmje.org). 14. Language: Articles must be written in Portuguese (following current orthographic rules) and / or English. 14.1. For articles that do not have an English version or when the latter is considered inadequate by the Editorial Board, the journal will provide translation at no cost to the author (s). 14.2. When there is an English version available, it should be sent to expedite publication. 14.3. The English and Portuguese versions of the manuscripts will be made available in full on SBC (http://www.arquivosonline.com.br) and SciELO websites (www.scielo.br), remaining accessible to the international community.
15. Peer review: all manuscripts submitted to ABC will undergo an initial evaluation by the editors, who will decide whether or not the manuscript will be submitted to peer-review; all reviewers are researchers that have regularly published articles in indexed journals and highly qualified cardiologists (ABC Body of Reviewers: http://www.arquivosonline.com.br/conselhoderevisores/). 15.1. Authors may designate up to five members of the Board of Reviewers for analysis of the submitted manuscript, as they may designate up to five reviewers not to participate in the process. 15.2. Reviewers will make general comments on the manuscript and decide whether it should be published, corrected according to recommendations, or rejected. 15.3. The Editors, after considering the reviewers comments, will make the final decision. In case of discrepancies between reviewers, a new review may be requested for a better decision. 15.4. Modification suggestions made by reviewers will be forwarded to the main author. After the manuscript has been modified to fit the new requirements, it will be forwarded to the reviewers for verification. 15.5. In exceptional cases, when the subject of the manuscript so requires, the Editor may request the assistance of a professional not listed in the Body of Reviewers. 15.6. The authors have thirty days to make the modifications requested by reviewers and resubmit the article. Failure to comply with this deadline will result in the removal of the article from the reviewing process. 15.7. After accepting the review, reviewers must issue their decision within 30 days. 15.8. Decisions will be communicated by message through the System of Article Submission and by e-mail. 15.9. The decisions of the editors will not be discussed in person or by phone. Responses should be submitted in writing to the journal.
15.10. Number of words: electronic word count should include the title page, summary, text, references and figure/table legends. Original Article Editorial Review Article Clinical Update Case Report Brief Communication Point of View Letter to Editor Image Correlations Maximum number of authors Title (characters including spaces) Running Title (characters including spaces) Summary (maximum n. of words) Maximum n. of words (including references) Maximum n. of references Maximum n. of tables + figs + video 10 2 4 6 8 8 3 5 4 150 120 150 120 120 120 120 120 120 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 250 -- 250 -- 250 -- -- -- -- 5000 1500 6500 1500 1500 2500 500 250 800 40 15 80 10 10 20 5 -- 10 8 2 8 2 2 2 1 1 1
15.11. Statistical guidelines 15.11.1. The appropriate use of statistical methods, as well as their correct description, is of utmost importance to have your article published at the Brazilian Archives of Cardiology (Arquivos Brasileiros de Cardiologia). Thus, the following general guidelines are presented to the authors on the information that must be provided in the article regarding the statistical analysis (for details, please read the statistical guidelines of the European Heart Journal). 1) About the sample: Provide details on both the population of interest and the procedures used to define the study sample. 2) In the Methods section, create a subsection exclusively dedicated to the description of the statistical analysis performed in the study, including: Presentation of continuous and/ or categorical variables: for continuous variables with normal distribution, mean and standard deviation should be used, whereas median and interquartile ranges should be used with those with non-normal distribution. As for categorical variables, they must be depicted as absolute numbers and percentages, with the respective confidence intervals; Description of the statistical methods used. When using more complex statistical methods, a literature reference must be provided for such methods; As a rule, statistical tests should always be two-sided, instead of one-sided; Level of statistical significance used; and Specification of the software used in the statistical analysis and its respective version. 3) Regarding the presentation of results after the statistical analysis: The main results should always be described with their respective confidence intervals; Do not repeat in the manuscript body data that have already been depicted in tables and figures; Rather than having very large tables, use charts alternatively to facilitate reading and understanding of the content; At the tables, even if the p value is non-significant, provide its respective value instead of "NS" (e.g., p = 0.29 instead of NS).
16. Articles must include the following order: 16.1. Title page 16.2. Text 16.3. Acknowledgements 16.4. Figure legends 16.5. Tables (including legends for abbreviations) 16.6. References 16.7. First page: 16.7.1. it must contain the full title of the article, in a succinct and descriptive manner, in Portuguese and English languages, as well as a short title (up to 50 characters including spaces) to be used in the article page headers; 16.7.2. Three to five keywords must be included, as well as their respective translation. Key words can be consulted at http://decs.bvs.br/, which contains terms in Portuguese, Spanish and English or www.nlm.nih.gov /mesh for terms in English only; 16.8. Second page: 16.8.1 Summary (250 words): The summary should be structured into five sections when it is an Original Article, avoiding abbreviations and considering the maximum number of words. In the case of Review Articles and Brief Communications, the summary is not structured, considering the maximum word limit. No references must be mentioned in the Summary: Background (rationale for the study);
Objectives; Methods (brief description of the used methodology); Results (only the main and most significant ones); Conclusions (succinct sentence(s) with data interpretation). Obs.: Case Reports do not need a Summary. 16.9. Original Article text: should be divided into: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion and Conclusions. 16.9.1. Introduction: 16.9.1.1. It must not have more than 350 words. 16.9.1.2. Write a description of the study background and rationale, justifying it based on the literature. 16.9.2. Methods: describe in details how subjects were selected from observational or experimental research (patients or laboratory animals, including the control group, if any), including age and gender. 16.9.2.1. Ethnicity must be mentioned when possible and clearly stated when relevant to the assessed topic. 16.9.2.2. Identify the equipment and reagents (including manufacturer, model and country of manufacture where appropriate) and give details of the procedures and techniques used in order to allow other researchers to reproduce your data. 16.9.2.3. Justify the methods used and evaluate possible limitations. 16.9.2.4. Describe all drugs and medications used, doses and routes of administration. 16.9.2.5. Describe the protocol used (interventions, outcomes, methods of allocation, blinding, and statistical analysis).
16.9.2.6. In case of studies in human subjects indicate that the study was approved by a Research Ethics Committee and that patients signed the free and informed consent. 16.9.3. Results: must be clearly presented, subdivided into sections, when possible, and supported by a moderate number of graphs, tables and figures. Avoid redundancy when presenting data, as in both the text and tables. 16.9.4. Discussion: it is directly related to the proposed topic, when analyzed in light of the literature, emphasizing new and important aspects of the study, its implications and limitations. The last paragraph should express the study findings or, if appropriate, recommendations and clinical implications. 16.9.5. Conclusions 16.9.5.1. At the end of the Conclusions section, indicate the study sources of funding. 17. Acknowledgements must come after the text. In this section, authors can thank all the sources of support for the research project, as well as individual contributions. 17.1. Each person mentioned in the acknowledgments section should send a letter authorizing the use of his/her name, as it can imply endorsement of data and conclusions. 17.2. Written consent from members of the work team or from external collaborators is not necessary, as long as the role of each of them is described in the acknowledgments section. 18. References: the Archives use the Vancouver style. 18.1. References must be cited numerically in order of appearance in the text and presented in superscript. 18.2. If more than two references are cited in sequence, only the first and last should be types, separated by a dash (Example 5-8). 18.3. For alternating citations, all references should be typed, separated by a comma (Example: 12, 19, 23). Abbreviations should be defined when they first appear in the text.
18.4. References must be aligned to the left. 18.5. Personal communications and unpublished data must not be included in the reference list, but mentioned in the text and in a footnote on the page where it has been mentioned. 18.6. Cite all study authors if there are six authors or fewer, or only the first six followed by et al. if there are more than six authors. 18.7. Journal abbreviations must comply with Index Medicus / Medline - posted in List of Journals Indexed in Index Medicus or through the site http://locatorplus.gov/. 18.8. Only indexed journal citations will be accepted. The cited books should have an ISBN (International Standard Book Number) registration number. 18.9. Summaries presented at conferences will be accepted up to two years after submission and must contain the term "congress abstract" or "abstract" in the reference. 19. Recovery policy: the editors encourage the citation of articles published in the Archives. 20. Tables must be numbered in order of appearance and used as necessary for a better understanding of the study. Tables should not contain data previously reported in the text. Indicate footnote markers in the following order: *,,,, //,, #, **,, etc. The Manual for the Formatting of Tables, Figures and Graphs for Submission of Articles to ABC Journal can be found at: http://publicacoes.cardiol.br/pub_abc/autor/pdf/manual_de_formatacao_abc.pdf 21. Figures: submitted figures must have good resolution to be assessed by the reviewers. Figure legends should be double-spaced, and be numbered and placed before the References. The abbreviations used should be explained in the legends. The Manual for the Formatting of Tables, Figures and Graphs for Submission of Articles to ABC Journal can be found at: http://publicacoes.cardiol.br/pub_abc/autor/pdf/manual_de_formatacao_abc.pdf
22. Images and videos: accepted articles containing medical examinations (e.g., echocardiograms and coronary angiography) must be submitted through the article submission system as motion pictures in MP4 format with codec system h:264, with a maximum of 20 megabytes, to be made available at the website: http://www.arquivosonline.com.br and tablet-version electronic journals. 23. The authors are not subjected to submission fee of articles and evaluation.