Submission Guidelines

1. About the journal

Advanced Ultrasound in Diagnosis and Therapy (Print ISSN: ISSN 2576-2508; Online ISSN: 2576-2516) is an open access, peer-reviewed, international English-language journal, publishing articles related to ultrasound imaging and technology of diagnosis and therapy in both basic science and clinical applications. It was launched in 2017 as a quarterly publication, and it has been indexed in databases such as SCOPUS, DOAJ, Embase, EBSCO, PubScholar, SciOpen, Google Scholar, and Baidu Academic. The Cite Score for the years 2022 and 2023 is 0.2 and 0.77, respectively, indicating a rapid growth phase in the journal's impact factor. Searched on Web of Science for “Advanced Ultrasound in Diagnosis and Therapy”, “Adv Ultrasound Diagn Ther” and “AUDT”. Following the results: From 1637 to 2023, there are 148 publications and 736 citing articles in total, with 764 times cited. The expected impact factor on Web of Science is 5.157, and the H-index is 9.77. The author instruction is updated on November 22, 2023.

2. Aims & Scope

Advanced Ultrasound in Diagnosis and Therapy (AUDT) is an international, peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary scientific and open access journal, which publishes review papers, research articles and other types of research in ultrasound imaging and technology of diagnosis and therapy in both basic science and clinical applications. It provides a forum for practicing radiologists, imaging researchers, technologists and trainees to exchange information in field of medical ultrasound. The journal also aims to be a valuable resource for non-radiologist clinicians. The topics included but not limited to:

General and Abdominal Ultrasound

Gastrointestinal Ultrasound

Genitourinary Ultrasound

Head and Neck Ultrasound

Breast Ultrasound

Musculoskeletal Ultrasound

Neurosonology

Vascular Ultrasound

Echocardiography

Interventional-Intraoperative Ultrasound

Contrast-Enhanced Ultrasound

Elastography

Emergency Medicine

Gynecologic Ultrasound

Obstetric Ultrasound

Fetal Echocardiography

Pediatric Ultrasound

Ophthalmologic Ultrasound

Translational medicine

Artificial intelligence technology

Therapeutic Ultrasound

Molecular imaging

Please note that no fees are charged for submission, processing, or publication in AUDT. If you need editing service, please browse: www.unitediting.com.

3. Manuscript Submission Overview

3.1 Types of Manuscript

The scope of AUDT will include original papers, review articles, editorial letters, technical developments, educational articles, case reports and letters to the editor in ultrasound and radiologic imaging.

Consensus and Guidelines: Papers are consensus and guidelines for ultrasound imaging and technology of diagnosis.

Original Research: A research paper that provides new information derived from original data and usually includes extensive statistical analysis.These will present original clinical and laboratory research and related topics. Although there is no set limit on the length of an original article, it is recommended that they be no longer than 6,500 words including abstract, tables, figure legends and references. An abstract no longer than 250 words should be provided with the following headings: Background and Purpose, Methods, Results, and Conclusions. A total of 8 figures or tables are allowed; additional tables and figures may be provided using the online data supplement system.

Review Article: An in-depth analysis of the current status of a particular topic. It is not an original article with new data but represents a well-balanced summary of a timely subject with reference to the literature. Abstracts are required for Reviews, but the structured abstract format of an Original Article is not necessary. Reviews have no restrictions on word count or the number of figures and tables. However, authors should eliminate redundancy, emphasize the central message, and provide only the data necessary to convey that message. It is recommended that Reviews have the approximate length of 6,500 words including abstract, tables, figure legends, and references. The total number of figures and/or tables is limited to 8.

Technical Development: A paper about new technologies applied to ultrasound imaging and technology of diagnosis.

Case Report: A paper that describes a group of cases or particular observations with unique imaging features or involving novel procedures. Case Reports are usually composed of at least 3 cases, retrospective, and not associated with extensive statistical analysis.

Expert Commentary: A short paper that describes the personal views of the author on a particular subject. It includes some review of the literature in making a point, although it is clearly an opinion piece rather than a review of the subject.

Editorial: This article type is by Invitation Only.

Letter to the Editor: Brief comments on published material and should be objective, constructive, and educational.This is either a brief summary of an original research or a comment on papers previously published in this journal. No abstraction is required. The letter should be 800 words or less (including references and figure legends) with a maximum of 10 references and may include only 1 figure/table. However, in case of a summary of a relatively large study, a total of 2 figures/tables are allowed; additional tables and figures may also be allowed when authors specifically request this to the editor at the time of submission.

Response to Letter: This article type is by Invitation Only.

Educational Article: Article about the basic education of ultrasound imaging and technology of diagnosis. It highlights the standardized education on fundamental knowledge and basic skills and related online education.

3.2 Before you begin

3.2.1 Peer Review Policy

The authors should ensure that the contents of the present manuscript have not been published nor intended to be published in other journals. AUDT operates a double-blinded peer review process in which where both authors and reviewers are unknown to each other. Each manuscript is reviewed by at least two referees. All manuscripts are reviewed as rapidly as possible, and an editorial decision is generally reached within 12 weeks of submission. The journal peer review process is here.

3.2.2 General Style

The manuscript must contain the following: author information page, title page, abstract, main text, references, tables, and figure legends. Leave margins of 2.5 cm on each side. The manuscript should be formatted as follows:12 point font, left-aligned, double-spaced. The main body of the manuscript and all tables included with your submission must be provided in Microsoft Word format. The text must be written in double-spaced 12-point font, preferably in Times New Roman. The right margin should not be justified (i.e., left-justification only). Abbreviations should be defined on first use in both the Abstract and main text. Place the page number in the middle of the bottom of each page from the title page onwards. Do not submit the manuscript with automatic formatting features (e.g., when using EndNote, remove field codes before submission).

3.2.3 Submission Process

Manuscripts that are ready for submission should be scientifically sound and without errors in English (including spelling, grammar, proper sentence flow, etc.).

Properly-formatted manuscripts should be submitted using the online submission system. Figures and Tables should be inserted into the main text and must be numbered following their number of appearances.

The submitting author, who is generally the corresponding author, is responsible for the manuscript during the submission and peer-review process. The submitting author must ensure that all eligible co-authors have been included in the author list and that they have all read and approved the submitted version of the manuscript. To submit your manuscript, register and log in to the submission website.

When a manuscript is submitted, the corresponding author will receive a response within a few days regarding the suitability of the manuscript for publication in AUDT. All manuscripts passed desk check will be sent to peer review, and the final acceptance/rejection depends on both reviewers and academic editor's decision.

4. Manuscript Preparation

4.1 Cover Letter

The cover letter accompanying the manuscript must specify the type of manuscript and include statements on ethical issues and conflicts of interest, and complete contact information for the corresponding author. The cover letter should include the following statement: "All authors have read and approved the submitted manuscript, the manuscript has not been submitted elsewhere nor published elsewhere in whole or in part, except as an abstract (if relevant)." This section should indicate the contact information of the corresponding author: postal code, address, phone number, fax number, and email address.

The cover letter may include the names of up to 3 potential reviewers whom the authors would like to suggest, especially members of the editorial board. The authors may also include the names of up to 3 reviewers whom they would like not to evaluate their submission. The editor ultimately decides who will review the manuscript.

4.2 Manuscripts should be presented in the following sequence

Title and author information page

Abstract

Main Text, including Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion and Summary/Conclusions

Acknowledgments

Conflict(s) of Interest and any Disclosure(s)

References

Tables

Figures

4.2.1 Title and Author Information Page

Title page should contain the following: title, running title, the number of characters in the title, the number of words in the manuscript (excluding author information, references, tables, and figure legends), the number of figures, and the number of tables. The full title of the article is limited to 120 characters (including spaces). Titles should be short, specific, and informative. The first page should contain all the following information: title; the full names of all authors and affiliations where the work was performed; a running title (not exceeding 50 characters, including spaces); and the contact information for the corresponding author including the complete address, telephone number, fax number, and email address. When there are multiple authors from multiple affiliations, use lower-case letters as superscripts in the order of appearance (e.g., a,b,c). Acknowledgements, sources of funding, and any conflicts of interest should be stated on this page under separate subheadings.

4.2.2 Abstract

The Abstract should not exceed 250 words. The Abstract must appear on a separate page. Original research, reviews, and meta-analyses require structured abstracts. The abstract must include the following separate sections: Background and Purpose, Methods, Results, and Conclusions. Each title should be terminated in boldface.

Keywords: Between 3 and 6 keywords should be provided at the end of the abstract page. Important keywords can be selected from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) used to catalogue and index MEDLINE and Index Medicus.

4.2.3 Main Text

The main text of Original Article must be prepared under the following subheadings: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusions. There is no restriction on section headings for Review Articles.

Information regarding approval of an institutional review board and obtaining informed consent should be mentioned in the Method section. References should be numbered in Arabic numbers in the order they are cited.

The first indent should be suppressed only after a section heading and that all other paragraphs must be indented, for each paragraph, (1) ensure that it is separated from the previous paragraph by a vertical space, and (2) do not include any new-line or new-paragraph marks (except at the end of the paragraph). Do not include any new-page marks in the file.

Use SI units of measurement in all manuscripts. For example, cm should be changed to mm. The SI unit should be used in the text, followed by the conventionally used measurement in parentheses. All drugs should be referred to by their generic names rather than trade names. The generic chemical identification of all investigational drugs must be provided.

Manuscripts that describe studies on humans must indicate that the study was approved by an institutional review committee and that all participants gave informed consent. Information regarding approval of an institutional review board and obtaining informed consent should be mentioned in the Method section. If not, the authors should state the appropriate reasons, and the Editorial Committee will decide the relevance. Manuscripts involving animals must indicate that the study was approved by an institutional animal care and use committee.

Superscript numbers should come after commas and periods according to submission rules. When using abbreviations, their full forms should be used at first mention; abbreviations/acronyms should then be used consistently in further occurrences.

References should be numbered in Arabic numbers in the order they are cited.

Units of measure should be written in accordance with submission rules (except for % and °C, a space should come between the number and the unit of measure).

For numbers, a comma should be inserted after every third digit. All statistical methods used should be described accurately in detail.

4.2.4 Acknowledgements

All sources of funding and financial or material support should be clearly identified in an acknowledgement. All authors are also required to report potential conflicts of interest, including funding and specific financial interests relevant to the subject of their manuscript in an acknowledgement.

4.2.5 Declarations

All manuscripts must contain the following sections under the heading 'Declarations':

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Conflict of Interest

Availability of data and materials

Consent for publication

Funding

Acknowledgement

Authors' contributions

Please see below for details on the information to be included in these sections.

If any of the sections are not relevant to your manuscript, please include the heading and write 'Not applicable' for that section.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Manuscripts reporting studies involving human participants, human data or human tissue must:

1.include a statement on ethics approval and consent (even where the need for approval was waived)

2.include the name of the ethics committee that approved the study and the committee’s reference number if appropriate.

Studies involving animals must include a statement on ethics approval and for experimental studies involving client-owned animals, authors must also include a statement on informed consent from the client or owner.

If your manuscript does not report on or involve the use of any animal or human data or tissue, please state “Not applicable” in this section.

Conflict of interest

All financial and non-financial competing interests must be declared in this section. If you are unsure whether you or any of your co-authors have a competing interest, please contact the editorial office.

If you do not have any competing interests, please state " The authors have no conflict of interest to declare." in this section.

Availability of data and materials

All manuscripts must include an ‘Availability of data and materials’ statement. Data availability statements should include information on where data supporting the results reported in the article can be found including, where applicable, hyperlinks to publicly archived datasets analysed or generated during the study. By data we mean the minimal dataset that would be necessary to interpret, replicate and build upon the findings reported in the article.

Data availability statements can take one of the following forms (or a combination of more than one if required for multiple datasets):

The datasets generated and/or analysed during the current study are available in the [NAME] repository, [PERSISTENT WEB LINK TO DATASETS]

The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article [and its supplementary information files].

The datasets generated and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available due [REASON WHY DATA ARE NOT PUBLIC] but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.

The data that support the findings of this study are available from [third party name] but restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license for the current study, and so are not publicly available. Data are however available from the authors upon reasonable request and with permission of [third party name].

Not applicable. If your manuscript does not contain any data, please state 'Not applicable' in this section.

Consent for publication

If your manuscript contains any individual person’s data in any form (including any individual details, images or videos), consent for publication must be obtained from that person, or in the case of children, their parent or legal guardian. All presentations of case reports must have consent for publication.

You can use your institutional consent form or our consent form if you prefer. You should not send the form to us on submission, but we may request to see a copy at any stage (including after publication).

If your manuscript does not contain data from any individual person, please state “Not applicable” in this section.

Funding

All sources of funding for the research reported should be declared. If the funder has a specific role in the conceptualization, design, data collection, analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript, this should be declared.

Acknowledgements

Please acknowledge anyone who contributed towards the article who does not meet the criteria for authorship including anyone who provided professional writing services or materials.

Authors should obtain permission to acknowledge from all those mentioned in the Acknowledgements section.

If you do not have anyone to acknowledge, please write "Not applicable" in this section.

Group authorship (for manuscripts involving a collaboration group): if you would like the names of the individual members of a collaboration Group to be searchable through their individual records, please ensure that the title of the collaboration Group is included on the title page and in the submission system and also include collaborating author names as the last paragraph of the “Acknowledgements” section. Please add authors in the format First Name, Middle initial(s) (optional), Last Name. You can add institution or country information for each author if you wish, but this should be consistent across all authors.

Authors' contributions

The individual contributions of authors to the manuscript should be specified in this section. Guidance and criteria for authorship can be found in our editorial policies. Please use initials to refer to each author's contribution in this section.

4.2.6 References

In-text citations should be numbered and should correspond to the numbers in the references. Up to six authors should be mentioned. In case there are seven or more authors, “et al.” must come after the primary author. They should be listed on a separate page at the end of the paper in the order first cited in the text.

The format of references should conform with that specified in "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals." Journal abbreviations should conform to the style used in the Cumulated Index Medicus.

Official abbreviations of quoted journals must be used. Year, volume, and start page–end page of the quoted literature should be accurately mentioned. The first letter of the title of the quoted article should be capitalized. Compliance with quotation styles should be observed.

The manuscript should comply with quotation rules in case a book has separate authors by chapter.

Sample References

(1). Journal article

[1] Lalzad A, Wong F, Singh N, Coombs P, Brockley C, Brennan S, et al. Knowledge of Safety, Training, and Practice of Neonatal Cranial Ultrasound: A Survey of Operators. J Ultrasound Med 2018;37(6):1411-1421.

[2] Milliner BHA, Tsung JW. Lung Consolidation Locations for Optimal Lung Ultrasound Scanning in Diagnosing Pediatric Pneumonia. J Ultrasound Med 2017;36(11):2325-2328.

[3] Maasland L, van Oostenbrugge RJ, Franke CF, Scholte Op Reimer WJ, Koudstaal PJ, Dippel DW; Netherlands Stroke Survey Investigators. Patients enrolled in large randomized clinical trials of antiplatelet treatment for prevention after transient ischemic attack or ischemic stroke are not representative of patients in clinical practice: the Netherlands Stroke Survey. Stroke 2009;40:2662-2668.

(2). Book

[1] Minematsu K, Bang OY, Uehara T. Risk factors. In: Kim JS, Caplan LR, Wong KS. Intracranial Atherosclerosis. 1st ed. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008;45-54.

(3). Web sites

Web sites generally follow this format: Author names (if any). Title of information or page. Name of website. URL. Publication date (if any). Access date.

(4). Otherwise follow uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html)

4.2.7 Tables

Type each table, with a title, on a separate page. Each table should be included as a Word table in order to ensure correct column alignment.

Cite and number tables in the order they are mentioned in the text. Tables should be as compact as possible. Use horizontal lines only above and below column headings and at the bottom of the table. Do not use vertical lines. All abbreviations should be spelled out when they first appear in tables. Footnotes are indicated in sequence. The significance of observations, as determined by appropriate statistical analyses, must be indicated.

4.2.8 Figures

Cite figures in numerical order (Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.) as they appear in the text. Figures must be submitted as separate files saved in JPEG, TIFF, GIF, EPS, or PPT format (do not embedded the figures in the Microsoft Word manuscript file).

All images should exceed the following image resolutions: Line Art (an image composed of lines and text) 1,000 dpi; Halftone (a continuous tone photograph, which contains no text) 300 dpi; or Combination (Line Art and Halftone) 600 dpi.

Individual figures should not be longer than one page and with a width that corresponds to 1 column (85 mm) or 2 columns (180 mm).

Color space: RGB (not CMYK).

Photographs of recognizable persons should be accompanied by a signed release from the person in the photograph or an appropriate legal guardian authorizing publication.

Legends for figures:

Provide a short title (in the legend, not on the figure itself) and an explanation in brief but sufficient detail to make the figure intelligible without reference to the text (unless a similar explanation has been given in another figure). If the figure has been previously published, cite the figure source in the legend.

Original images for blots and gels requirements:

Authors must provide the original, uncropped and unadjusted images supporting all blot and gel results reported in an article’s figures and supporting information files.

Please create a zip folder that contains all the original blot and gel images contained in the manuscript’s main figures and supplemental figures. Authors should annotate each original image, corresponding to the figure in the main article or supplementary materials, and label each lane or loading order.

All labeling and annotation should be performed without obscuring any data or background bands. All experimental samples and controls used for one comparative analysis should be run on the same blot/gel image. The different images should not be spliced together to illustrate the results.

4.2.9 Supplemental Data

Supplemental Data is content that the authors wish to make available online if the paper is accepted for publication. This is currently confined to video files.

5. Copyright and Licensing

Upon manuscript acceptance, authors will be required to complete a publication agreement. The agreement may be signed by the Corresponding Author on behalf of all authors. The authors agree to transfer the copyright and related property rights to the editorial department of AUDT. Manuscripts will not pass to production without the completed publication agreement. The publication agreement is available here. AUDT is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. AUDT seeks to maximize the rights of its authors and their employers to post preprint versions of an article on the author's personal web site, on a server operated by the author's employer, or on a server operated by an approved not-for-profit third party. AUDT allows its authors to follow mandates of agencies that fund the author's research by posting accepted versions of their articles in the agencies' publicly accessible repositories.

Hand-written signatures are required. The AUDT requires the Publication Agreement be scanned as a PDF document and emailed to the editorial office. Email: publisher@audt.org.

6. Submitting a Revision

To submit a revised manuscript via the AUDT online submission system at http://www.journaladvancedultrasound.com:81/journalx/authorLogOn.action, click on "Submit a revised manuscript." You will be presented with information on the original version of your manuscript, which should be edited as necessary. You will then be required to upload the files related to the revised version. Please include your responses to the reviewer comments and a cover letter to the Editor-in-Chief. In addition, please submit a copy of the revised text with changes marked in the text using either track changes or highlighted as supplementary data.

7. Online Submission Process

All articles are submitted and the entire review process is managed electronically through the AUDT online submission system (http://www.journaladvancedultrasound.com/journalx/authorLogOn.action).

Users must register when accessing the AUDT online submission system for the first time, by clicking on “Register.” You will be asked to complete 3 steps in order to obtain your personal account. For any questions, please contact our Editorial Office by e-mail: Publisher@AUDT.org.

8. ID/Password

We strongly recommend using your email address as your ID, since this represents a unique and easy-to-remember identifier that will be needed each time you log onto the system (as a reviewer or author). The password will be encrypted for security reasons, and will not be known to AUDT. A verification email will be emailed to you at the address you used to register.

9. Submitting and tracking manuscripts

9.1 Tracking manuscripts

You may begin a submission or continue the process at a later date by clicking on "Save/Continue" at the bottom of the screen when entering your manuscript information. This enables you to save that page or continue to the next page. If you choose not to complete the submission during a particular session, your manuscript will appear in the "incomplete submission" queue in "My Manuscript." Do not submit the same paper more than once.

After completing the submission, the manuscript number will be sent to the email address specified, and this should be quoted in all subsequent communications. This email notification will be sent after we have confirmed that the submitted manuscript is consistent with the journal style. Manuscripts that do not conform to the style of the AUDT may be returned without further review, requiring you to correct the style of the manuscript before resubmitting it.

9.2 Manuscript Status

Authors who submit online using the AUDT online submission system can keep track of the progress of their manuscript through the peer-review process by visiting the AUDT online submission page and clicking on "My Manuscript."

10. Publication Ethics

AUDT is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view AUDT’s anti-plagiarism policy here.

Updated on 20 December 2023