The Egyptian Orthopaedic Journal

Guide for Authors

The main objective of the journal is to disseminate knowledge to the orthopaedic surgeons with ultimate goal to improve their decision-making and practice, which will be reflected to the welfare of the patients suffering from musculoskeletal disorders.

The Egyptian Orthopaedic journal (EOJ) aims to be a leading journal in Orthopaedic and contribute towards the improvement of quality of Orthopedic health care. The journal publishes original research work and review articles related to different aspects of Orthopedic Surgery including but not limited to:

Arthroplasty
Arthroscopy and Sports Medicine
Trauma and Fracture Management
Spinal Disorders and Deformities
Pediatric Orthopaedics
Limb Reconstruction and External Fixation
Hand Surgery and Microsurgery
Orthopaedic Oncology
Foot and Ankle Surgery
Bone and joint infections
Orthogeriatrics

It also publishes articles on continuing education, health-related information, case reports and letters to the editor. By publishing with us, your research will get the coverage and attention it deserves. Open access and continuous online publication mean your work will be published swiftly, ready to be accessed by anyone, anywhere, at any time.

Article categories

The categories of articles that are published in the Journal are listed and described below. Please select the category that best describes your paper. If your paper does not fall into any of these categories, please contact the Editorial Office.

You need to follow all the guidelines of this journal and the international guidelines, as per the article type:

Original Research Article: Original, in-depth clinical research that represents new and significant contributions to medical science. The entire manuscript should not exceed 3000 words and should have maximum 50 references and 8 authors. If the work included more than 8 authors, please contact the Editorial Office.
Randomized Control Trial (RCT): These studies should follow CONSORT guidelines and should not exceed 3500 words and 60 references. An Institutional Ethical Committee approval is required before the start of the study.
Systematic Review Article: These are comprehensive review articles on topics of current clinical interest in Orthopaedic targeting specialists. The entire manuscript should not exceed 3500 words with not more than 60 references. Please use structured abstract for all the review articles (including narrative reviews).
Narrative Reviews: These comprehensive reviews should cover up to date information about the subject. The manuscript should not exceed 2500 words and should have a maximum of 50 references and 6 authors.
Short Communication: Short communications can be personal opinions, or mini review on a burning topic, related to Orthopedics. They should be up to 1000 words and can have up to 10 references, 3 authors and 2 figures/tables.
Case Reports: These should be novel, describing a new pathology, or management of a case. The manuscript should not exceed more than 2000 words and maximum limit of authors is 4 and the references up to 20, for this category. Please use structured abstract for all case report articles.
Clinical Practice Guidelines: These articles summarize and suggest the guidelines for the clinicians about a common medical or surgical problem, based on currently available evidence from the literature. These should have a maximum of 3000 words, 50 references, and up to 8 authors.
Editorials: The Editor usually commissions editorials but ideas or suggestions are welcomed.
Letters/Opinion: Are up to 500 words and are subject to copyediting, with the maximum of 2 authors and 5 references. Preference will be given to letters responding to points raised by articles published recently in this Journal. Authors will not receive proofs. Opinion articles relevant to newer developments that would be of significance to medical profession are invited.

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

The Egyptian Orthopedic Journal (EOJ) provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. All articles published in EOJ are made immediately available worldwide under the Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which allows unrestricted reuse of the material with proper attribution. Users have the right to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles provided the original work is properly cited.

This policy is in accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (https://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/boai-10-recommendations).

Editors encourage the use of reporting guidelines for all study designs such as the CONSORT statement for randomized controlled trials and the STROBE statement for observational studies, PRISMA for systematic reviews, and CARE for case reports (see Equator network at: https://www.equator-network.org/)

PREPARATION

Manuscripts must conform to the instructions given below:

General

Type the manuscript using 'Times New Roman font, size 12 in double space throughout.
Please arrange the manuscript in two files as follows: 1) Title page, and 2) main manuscript file including the title of the manuscript, the abstract and key words in a separate page, followed by the manuscript sections: Introduction, Material & Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion and References.
Number all pages in the main manuscript file consecutively.
All figures and Tables must be referred to in the manuscript.
Only the Title page should bear the names and addresses of the author(s). They should be removed from the abstract and the main file.

Title page file

should include the following essential information:

Title. Concise and informative. Titles are often used in information retrieval systems. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible.
Author names and affiliations. Please clearly indicate the given name(s) and family name(s) of each author and check that all names are accurately spelled. Present the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names. Indicate all affiliations with a lower- case superscript letter immediately after the author's name and in front of the appropriate address. Provide the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name, and the e-mail address of each author. Please do not add your academic qualifications, designation etc.
Corresponding author. Indicate who will handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also post-publication. This responsibility includes answering any future queries about article. Please provide the name, postal address with postal code, mobile phone number and E-mail address of the corresponding author. Ensure that contact details are kept up to date by the corresponding author.
Present/permanent address. If an author has moved since the work described in the article was done, or was visiting at the time, a 'Present address' (or 'Permanent address') may be indicated as a footnote to that author's name. The address at which the author did the work must be retained as the main, affiliation address. Superscript Arabic numerals are used for such footnotes.
In animal studies, the title should state the species.
A short running title, not exceeding 40 characters, should be provided.

Manuscript file: It includes

Abstract

A concise and factual abstract is required. The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research, the material and methods, the principal results and major conclusions.
An abstract is often presented separately from the article, so it must be able to standalone.
References should be avoided. Also, non-standard or uncommon abbreviations should be avoided, but if essential they must be defined at their first mention in the abstract itself.

Keywords

Immediately after the abstract, provide a minimum of 3 keywords to a maximum of 12 keywords in English. Avoid general and plural terms and multiple concepts (avoid, for example, 'and', 'of'). Be sparing with abbreviations: only abbreviations firmly established in the field may be eligible. These keywords will be used for indexing purposes.

Article structure

Introduction

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

Material 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.

Discussion

This should explore the significance of the results of the work, not repeat them. Citations and discussion should be directed to the most relevant, recent, and evidence based published literature.

Conclusions

The main conclusions of the study may be presented in a short Conclusions section, which may stand alone or form a subsection of a Discussion section.

Appendices

If there is more than one appendix, they should be identified as A, B, etc. Formulae and equations in appendices should be given separate numbering: Eq. (A.1), Eq. (A.2), etc.; in a subsequent appendix, Eq. (B.1) and so on. Similarly for tables and figures: Table A.1; Fig. A.1, etc.

Abbreviations

Define abbreviations that are not standard in this field in a footnote to be placed on the first page of the article. Such abbreviations that are unavoidable in the abstract must be defined at their first mention there, as well as in the footnote. Ensure consistency of abbreviations throughout the article.

Acknowledgments

Collate acknowledgments in a separate section at the end of the article before the references and do not, therefore, include them on the title page, as a footnote to the title or otherwise. List here those individuals who provided help during the research (e.g., providing language help, writing assistance or proof reading the article, etc.).

Funding

List funding sources in this standard way to facilitate compliance to funder's requirements as follow:

Funding: This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health [grant numbers xxxx, yyyy]; the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, WA [grant number zzzz]; and the United States Institutes of Peace [grant number aaaa].

It is not necessary to include detailed descriptions on the program or type of grants and awards. When funding is from a block grant or other resources available to a university, college, or other research institution, submit the name of the institute or organization that provided the funding.

If no funding has been provided for the research, it is recommended to include the following sentence:

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Units

Follow internationally accepted rules and conventions: use the international system of units (SI). If other units are mentioned, please give their equivalent in SI.

Math formulae

Please submit math equations as editable text and not as images. Present simple formulae in line with normal text where possible and use the solidus (/) instead of a horizontal line for small fractional terms, e.g., X/Y. In principle, variables are to be presented in italics. Powers of e are often more conveniently denoted by exp. Number consecutively any equations that have to be displayed separately from the text (if referred to explicitly in the text).

Footnotes

Footnotes should be used sparingly. Number them consecutively throughout the article. Many word processors can build footnotes into the text, and this feature may be used. Otherwise, please indicate the position of footnotes in the text and list the footnotes themselves separately at the end of the article. Do not include footnotes in the Reference list.

Artwork Electronic artwork General points

Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of your original artwork.
Embed the used fonts if the application provides that option.
Use the Times New Roman font.
Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text. Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files.
Provide captions to illustrations separately.
Size the illustrations close to the desired dimensions of the published version.
Submit each illustration as a separate file.

Ensure that color images are accessible to all, including those with impaired color vision.
Supply files that are optimized for screen use (e.g., GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG); these typically have a low number of pixels and a limited set of colors;
Supply files that are too low in resolution;
Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.

Color artwork

Please make sure that artwork files are in an acceptable format (TIFF (or JPEG), EPS (or PDF) or MS (Office files) and with the correct resolution.

Figure captions

Ensure that each illustration has a caption. Supply captions separately, not attached to the figure. A caption should comprise a brief title (not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used.

Tables

Please submit tables as editable text and not as images. Tables are placed on separate page(s) at the end. Number tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text and place any table notes below the table body. Be sparing in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in them do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article. Please avoid using vertical rules and shading in table cells.

References

Number the references in the order in which they first appear in the text and identify the reference numbers in the text in superscript. References must be placed at the end of the manuscript. Please use recent references as much as possible. The responsibility for the accuracy of references lies with the respective authors. The Journal agrees with the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (http://www.icmje.org). The general arrangement, abbreviations of Journal names, and punctuations followed are as per the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts submitted to Biomedical Journals (http://www.icmje.org). Please pay attention to the style of references and punctuation as follows:

Journal article

List all authors when six or fewer as shown in the example below: Tallon D, Chard J, Dieppe P. Exploring the priorities of patients with osteoarthritis of the knee. Arthritis Care and Res 2000;13:312–9.

When there are seven or more authors, list only the first six and add et al.

Book or monograph

Following is an example: Cassidy JT. Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. In: Textbook of Rheumatology 6th ed, Kelly et al (eds) Philadelphia Saunders 2000; pp. 1297–313.

Citation in text

Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Unpublished results and personal communications are not recommended in the reference list but may be mentioned in the text. If these references are included in the reference list they should follow the standard reference style of the journal and should include a substitution of the publication date with either 'Unpublished results' or 'Personal communication'. The citation of a reference as 'in press' implies that the item has been accepted for publication.

Reference links

Increased discoverability of research and high quality peer review are ensured by online links to the sources cited. To allow us to create links to abstracting and indexing services, such as Scopus, Crossref and PubMed, please ensure that data provided in the references are correct. Please note that incorrect surnames, journal/book titles, publication year and pagination may prevent link creation. When copying references, please be careful as they may already contain errors. Use of the DOI is highly encouraged.

A DOI is guaranteed never to change, so you can use it as a permanent link to any electronic article. An example of a citation using DOI for an article not yet in an issue is: VanDecar J.C., Russo R.M., James D.E., Ambeh W.B., Franke M. (2003). Aseismic continuation of the Lesser Antilles slab beneath northeastern Venezuela. Journal of Geophysical Research, https://doi.org/10.1029/2001JB000884. Please note the format of such citations should be in the same style as all other references in the paper.

Web references

As a minimum, the full URL should be given and the date when the reference was last accessed. Any further information, if known (DOI, author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.), should also be given. Web references can be listed separately (e.g., after the reference list) under a different heading if desired, or can be included in the reference list.

Data references

This journal encourages you to cite underlying or relevant datasets in your manuscript by citing them in your text and including a data reference in your Reference List. Data references should include the following elements: author name(s), dataset title, data repository, version (where available), year, and global persistent identifier. Add [dataset] immediately before the reference so we can properly identify it as a data reference. The [dataset] identifier will not appear in your published article.

Preprint references

Where a preprint has subsequently become available as a peer-reviewed publication, the formal publication should be used as the reference. If there are preprints that are central to your work or that cover crucial developments in the topic, but are not yet formally published, these may be referenced. Preprints should be marked as such, for example by including the word preprint, or the name of the preprint server, as part of the reference. The preprint DOI should also be provided.

References in a special issue

Please ensure that the words 'this issue' are added to any references in the list (and any citations in the text) to other articles in the same Special Issue.

Reference style

Text: Indicate references by (consecutive) superscript Arabic numerals in the order in which they appear in the text. The numerals are to be used outside periods and commas, inside colons and semicolons. For further detail and examples you are referred to the AMA Manual of Style, A Guide for Authors and Editors, 11th Edition.

List: Number the references in the list in the order in which they appear in the text.

Examples:

Reference to a journal publication:

Van der Geer J, Hanraads JAJ, Lupton RA. The art of writing a scientific article. J Sci Commun. 2010;163:51–59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.Sc.2010.00372 Reference to a journal publication with an article number:

Van der Geer J, Hanraads JAJ, Lupton RA. The art of writing a scientific article. Heliyon. 2018;19:e00205. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2018.e00205

Reference to a book:

Strunk W Jr, White EB. The Elements of Style. 4th ed. New York, NY: Longman; 2000. Reference to a chapter in an edited book:
Mettam GR, Adams LB. How to prepare an electronic version of your article. In: Jones BS, Smith RZ, eds. Introduction to the Electronic Age. New York, NY: E-Publishing Inc; 2009:281–304. Reference to a website:
Cancer Research UK. Cancer statistics reports for the UK. Accessed 13 March 2003. http:// www.cancerresearchuk.org/aboutcancer/statistics/cancerstatsreport/; 2003. .

Reference to a dataset:

[dataset] 6. Oguro M, Imahiro S, Saito S, Nakashizuka T. Mortality data for Japanese oak wilt disease and surrounding forest compositions, Mendeley Data, v1; 2015. https://doi.org/10.17632/ xwj98nb39r.1

Reference to software:

Coon E, Berndt M, Jan A, Svyatsky D, Atchley A, Kikinzon E, Harp D, Manzini G, Shelef E, Lipnikov K, Garimella R, Xu C, Moulton D, Karra S, Painter S, Jafarov E, Molins S. Advanced Terrestrial Simulator (ATS) v0.88 (Version 0.88). Zenodo; 2020, March 25. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3727209

Journal abbreviations source

Journal names should be abbreviated according to the List of Title Word Abbreviations.

Video

We accept video material and animation sequences to support and enhance your scientific research. Authors who have video or animation files that they wish to submit with their article are strongly encouraged to include links to these within the body of the article. This can be done in the same way as a figure or table by referring to the video or animation content and noting in the body text where it should be placed. All submitted files should be properly labeled so that they directly relate to the video file's content. To ensure that your video or animation material is directly usable, please provide the file in one of our recommended file formats with a preferred maximum size of 150 MB per file. Video and animation files supplied will be published online in the electronic version of your article in EOA Web products,

Submission checklist

You can use this list to carry out a final check of your submission before you send it to the journal for review.

Ensure that the following items are present:

Title page file: including all authors and one author has been designated as the corresponding author with contact details:

E-mail address
Affiliation
Full postal address
Mobile phone number

Manuscript file:

Abstract, including keywords
Manuscript sections
All figures (include relevant captions)
All tables (including titles, description, footnotes)
Ensure all figure and table citations in the text match the files provided
Indicate clearly if color should be used for any figures in print Graphical Abstracts / Highlights files (where applicable) Supplemental files (where applicable)

Further considerations

Manuscript has been 'spell checked' and 'grammar checked'
All references mentioned in the Reference List are cited in the text, and vice versa
Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Internet)
A competing interests statement is provided, even if the authors have no competing interests to declare
Journal policies detailed in this guide have been reviewed
Referee suggestions and contact details provided, based on journal requirements

Check that all necessary files have been uploaded

AFTER ACCEPTANCE

Proof correction

We will do everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately. Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text, tables and figures. Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the Editor. It is important to ensure that all corrections are sent back to us in one communication. Please check carefully before replying, as inclusion of any subsequent corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility.

Open access policy:

The Egyptian Orthopedic Journal (EOJ) provide immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. All articles published in EOJ are made immediately available worldwide under the Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which allows unrestricted reuse of the material with proper attribution. Users have the right to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles provided the original work is properly cited.

This policy is in accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (https://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/boai-10-recommendations).

The EOJ defines open access by the following conditions:

Peer-reviewed literature is freely available without a subscription.
Literature is immediately released in open-access format.
Published material can be re-used without obtaining permission if a correct citation to the original publication is given.

Authorship of the paper:

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. Transparency about the contributions of authors is encouraged.
Authors are strongly advised to ensure the author group, the corresponding author, and the order of authors is correct at submission.
Adding and/or deleting authors during the revision stages are generally not permitted, but in some cases may be warranted. Reasons for changes in authorship should be explained in detail. Please note that changes to authorship cannot be made after acceptance of a manuscript.

Compliance with Ethical Standards:

To ensure that accepted principles of ethical and professional conduct have been followed, authors should include information regarding sources of funding, potential conflicts of interest (financial or non-financial) and acknowledgement of sources.
Statements of compliance are required if the work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that has any unusual hazards inherent in their use, or if it involves the use of animal or human subjects.
Studies on patients or volunteers require ethics committee approval and informed consent, which should be documented in the paper.

Conflict of interest:

Conflict of interest for a given manuscript exists when a participant in the peer review and publication process - author, reviewer, and editor has ties to activities that could inappropriately influence his or her judgment, whether or not judgement is affected. Financial relationships with industry (for example, through employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria expert testimony) either directly or through immediate family, are usually considered to be the most important conflicts of interest. However, conflicts can occur for other reasons, such as personal relationships, academic competition, and intellectual passion.
Authors should be responsible for recognizing and disclosing financial and other conflicts of interest that might bias their work. They should acknowledge in the manuscript all financial support for the work and other financial or personal connections to the work.

Originality and plagiarism:

The authors should ensure that

They have written entirely original works.
If the authors have used the work and/or words of others this has been appropriately cited or quoted.

To verify originality, your article may be checked by the originality detection service. All new submissions to EOJ are automatically screened for Similarity Check (powered by iThenticate) to screen all new manuscripts for plagiarism within the editorial system. Editors may also choose to run a similarity report at any other stage during the peer review process or post-publication. Authors and researchers can also use iThenticate to screen their work before submission by visiting http://www.ithenticate.com/.

Multiple, redundant, or concurrent publications:

The manuscript should not be submitted to more than one journal for simultaneous consideration.
An author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal.
Prior publication in the form of an abstract or publication as an academic thesis is allowed.

Data access and retention:

Authors may be asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review.
Fundamental errors:

Authors have an obligation to correct mistakes once they discover a significant error in their published article.
The author(s) is/are requested to contact the journal and explain in what sense the error is impacting the article.
A decision on how to correct the literature will depend on the nature of the error. This may be a correction or retraction.

Article withdrawal and retraction:

If there is a valid concern of misbehavior, the Journal contacts the author(s) concerned under their given e-mail address and is given an opportunity to address the issue. Depending on the situation, this may result in the Journal's implementation of the following measures, including, but not limited to:

If the manuscript is still under consideration, it may be rejected and returned to the author.
If the article has already been published online, depending on the nature and severity of the infraction:

An erratum/correction may be placed with the article
An expression of concern may be placed with the article
Or in severe cases retraction of the article may occur. The reason will be given in the published erratum, expression of concern, or retraction note.

Editorial process

All articles submitted to the Journal undergo initial review by the Editor/associate editor and articles that are outside the scope of the Journal or are not in the journal format are excluded. Later each article is reviewed by at least two reviewers. The time to first decision is usually less than 6 weeks. As per the policy of the Journal, an Editor, who is either author of a manuscript or belongs to the same institution as any of the authors, is not assigned that manuscript and is not involved in decision- making regarding its publication.

Our Editors follow guidelines and best practices published by professional organizations, including Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals from ICMJE (www.icmje.org/ icmje-recommendations.pdf) and Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (https://doaj.org/ best practice). Our Editors are familiar with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) “Code of Conduct and Best Pracice Guidelines for Journal Editors" (see: https://publicationethics.org/about/our-organisation).

Peer Review Process

All manuscripts are subject to a strict peer review process (double blind peer review process) involving members of the editorial board and external reviewers with expertise in the subject matter.
The process starts with an initial review by the Editor-In-Chief or Co-Editor-In-Chief who makes an initial assessment of suitability for The Egyptian Orthopaedic Journal.
All new submissions to The Egyptian Orthopaedic Journal are automatically screened for plagiarism within the editorial system. The Editor-In-Chief may also choses to run a similarity report at any other stage during the peer review process or post-publication. Authors can also use iThenticate to screen their work before submission by visiting http://www.ithenticate.com/
If the manuscript is deemed of interest and technically suitable for starting the peer review process, it is then assigned to a member of the editorial board (The associate Editor) who serves as the principal reviewing editor.
The Associate Editor invites external reviewers (a minimum of two independent expert reviewers) who are blinded to the manuscript author(s) to further assess the manuscript, recommend any revisions, and offer their opinion on acceptability.
Depending on the reviewing editor/reviewers' recommendations, the Editor-In-Chief is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of articles.
Manuscripts can be accepted, with minor or major revision, or rejected. If the decision is 'revision', the authors are requested to take the remarks of the referees and editors into account. A second or multiple reviewing process(es) can follow. Upon final acceptance, the authors will be notified by an E mail, and the accepted manuscript will be finally edited by the language editor for free linguistic edit service.
After the linguistic edit of the accepted article, the Galley Proof will be sent as a PDF file to the corresponding author. This proof must be carefully corrected and sent back within two working days.
We encourage a systematic approach to manuscript review and provide reviewers with the “COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers" (Please, see: https://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines-new/cope-ethical- guidelines-peer-reviewers).

Peer review and timelines:

Our Editors are responsible to select expert reviewers within the topic of each submitted manuscript from the journal database or suggested by JANE or Publons (WOS). Editors are also responsible to ensure that reviewer comments are properly assessed and interpreted with declared conflicts of interest. Editors will do all they can to ensure the timely processing of manuscripts as per the peer review policy. Manuscripts submitted by a member of a journal's editorial team are independently peer-reviewed. In this case, the Editor will have no role in the peer review process or publication decision for his own article. We believe that an efficient editorial process of high quality is a valuable service both to our authors and to the scientific community. The journal's first decision for the first-round revision may be expected at the earliest 2-4 weeks after submission, and the final decision of acceptance or rejection is expected within 6-8 weeks.

Editorial Freedom:

The EOJ follows the World Association of Medical Ethics (WAME) (available at: https://wame.org/editorial-independence). Editorial freedom is defined as editors holding full responsibility for editorial decisions on individual manuscripts. Editors base their editorial decisions on the transparency, validity, and quality of all manuscripts, and our Editors are free to express critical but responsible views about all aspects of medicine without fear of forfeit. Our Editors are supported by the Editorial Board who assists the Editor with editorial policy.

Confidentiality:

All manuscripts submitted to EOJ are privileged communications. The Journal's Editorial Board, and all editorial and publication staff, are asked to keep all information about a submitted manuscript confidential, sharing it only with those involved in the peer review, and publication processes.

Competing interests:

The Journal's Editors are responsible for making all editorial decisions based on the relevance of a manuscript to the journal and on the manuscript's originality, quality, and transparency. They agree to ensure that those decisions will not be influenced by commercial interests or conflicts of Interest.

Ethical approval:

Our Editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with the following requirements:

Research work involving human participants, human material, or human data should be guided by the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki (1964) and its update (2013) (See: https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki/), as well as the International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research involving human subjects (CIOMS 2016).

Informed consent and ethics committee/IRB approval: A paper describing experimental work in humans must:

(1) Indicate that informed consent has been obtained from patients where appropriate,

(2) Include a statement that the responsible ethics committee has given approval.

(3) Do not use patients' names, initials or hospital numbers, especially in illustrative material.

All animal experiments should comply with the ARRIVE guidelines (see: https://arriveguidelines.org/), and should be carried out per the U.K. Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act, 1986 and associated guidelines, EU Directive 2010/63/ EU for animal experiments (see: https://ec.europa.eu/environment/chemicals/lab_animals/legislation_en.htm).

Dealing with possible misconduct:

Our Editors are responsible to act if they suspect misconduct. This task involves both published and unpublished manuscripts.

Editors will reject papers with raised concerns about possible misconduct and will be ethically obliged to pursue alleged cases.

Editors will seek a response from authors suspected of misconduct. If they are not satisfied with the response, they will raise their concerns to the relevant employers, or institution, or appropriate body.

Publication Fees

The publication fee for EOJ is 5000 EP for Egyptian authors and there is a fee waiver for non-Egyptian authors. Publication fees will be required once the paper is finally accepted for publication. The acceptance to pay the handling fee is not a guarantee that the paper will be accepted for publication. Authors may still request (in advance) that the editorial office waive some/or all the handling fees under special circumstances.

Queries

For questions about the editorial process (including the status of manuscripts under review) or for technical support on submissions, please contact the Editor-In-Chief (Email: farouk-o@aun.edu.eg).