Investigación Clinica publishes Original Research Articles, Reviews and Clinical Case Reports in Spanish and English that represent a significant contribution to the advance of knowledge in human or animal biology. It also includes a section of Letters to the Editor.

Send the manuscript (in Word for Win dows ®), with its corresponding Check List and accompanied by a Cover Letter to the Editor, by e-mail to the following addresses: riclinicas@gmail.com / elenaryder@gmail. com. The Tables and Figures, if any, should be placed at the end of the manuscript text and must be sent as individual files (one per each table and figure). The name of three possible referees, with their postal and e-mail addresses should be submitted together with the manuscript. The Editorial Board reserves the right to decide if any of them will be chosen as reviewers. Everything concerning the correspondence, including the opinion of the referees, the requirements resulting from the manuscript review and notification of the decision of the Editorial Committee, will be conducted by e-mail. The Paper follow-up correspondence must include the code assigned by the Journal in the receipt letter.

 

Cover Letter

The manuscript must be accompanied by a letter, addressed to the Editor, in which all authors accept, with their signature, that have actively participated in the development and execution of this work, and that the manuscript is being sent for consideration to this journal. In this letter, the authors must state that the work submitted is original, has not been published previously, and that it is not under consideration for publication. Authorship must be based in:

• A substantial contribution to the concept and design of the study, acquisition of data or analysis and interpretation of the data;
• Drafting or critically reviewing the manuscript; and 3) Final approval of the version of the article to be published. Raising funds, collecting data or general supervision of the research group, by themselves, do not justify Those members of the group that do not meet the authorship criteria should be recognized, with their authoriza tion, in the Acknowledgments section. The author must sign a form specifying the ex tent of their participation in the work. The order of authorship credited should be a joint decision of the co-authors. The order of appearance of the authors, and the inclusion or exclusion of any of them, cannot be modified once the work has been accepted. In the cover letter, it is essential to include source of financing, participation of each of the authors using initials and the ORCID number (ORCID iD) of each one, and if there is any conflict of competence.

 

Peer-review Process

This process will be realized through electronic means. All manuscripts submitted for publication are considered by the Editorial Board of the Journal, which decides if they should be sent to review, or should be rejected because the manuscript does not meet the minimal editorial requirements or if it is not of sufficient quality to be published in the journal. The corresponding author will receive a receipt letter with a numerical code. The Original Research Articles and Clinical Case Reports will be reviewed by two experts in the area object of the communication, and only one, in the case of Review Articles. The name of the authors and reviewers áre strictly confidential; the Journal follows the double blind review process. The reviewers will be given a maximum of a two-month period to send their evaluations. If the opinions of two of them coincide, the Editorial Board could accept these evaluations. In case of discrepancy, it will wait for a third opinion or it may even require the evaluation of additionally appointed referees. The authors will receive the complete reviewer’s evaluations, both in cases of manuscript modifications, or in cases of rejections. The Editorial Committee will give the authors a two-month period to respond to the reviewer’s opinions or to make the suggested modifications. If the authors take more time to answer than the stipulated, the manuscript will be rejected or considered as a new submission.

 

Publication  Fees. A nominal publication fee will be charged upon acceptance of a paper, to contribute to the cost of Editorial Handling.

 

Editorial Norms

Manuscripts should be submitted in Microsoft Word® (.doc/.docx) format, preferably in Times New Roman 12 font, must be double-spaced throughout, all pages should be numbered and with ample margins in both sides.

Original Research Articles, Clinical Case Reports and Review Articles must consist of original contributions of importance to the advance of knowledge in the subject matter of the study. They must include in the first page the manuscript’s:

The Title of the work, which must be with a capital letter at the beginning or in the case of proper names; then place the authors with their first name, the middle initial and the complete last name; if they use two surnames they must separate them with a hyphen. The name of each author will have superscripts of consecutive numbers that correspond to each of the institutions of affiliation. Do not repeat if they belong to the same institution, just place the respective superscript. Do not use professional titles. The author of the correspondence, his full name, without academic titles, institutional address, city, country, telephone and email must be indicated.

A short Title of no more than 75 characters, in the language in which the manuscript was written.

Keywords. In a separate line, three to six keywords will be written in Spanish and English, avoiding repeating words found in the title.

This should be followed by a summary in Spanish and the Title and Abstract, both in English. If the full text of the paper is written in English or as with the English abstract, it is important to consult with an expert if the author is not proficient in the language. A manuscript could be rejected if it requires considerable language modifications.

Original Research Articles, should be structured as follows: Abstracts in   Spanish and English, Introduction, Material and Methods or Patients and Methods (if the research is related to humans), Results, Discussion, Tables, Figures, Acknowledgments and References. Tables and Figures must be presented separately from the manuscript. The Journal does not utilize a Conclusions section and these should be part of the end of the Discussion.

Abstract, must be written in American English and should establish the objectives of the study, the methodology used, the original observations and the conclusions based on the results presented. It must not contain references, nor be structured and should not exceed the limit of 250 words. A brief conclusion must be presented at the end of the abstract. Avoid the use of abbreviations and if necessary, they should be defined at the first mention in the text. The summary in Spanish must comply with the same indications as the Abstract in English.

 

Introduction: it should include adequate background and general information about the subject under study, controversial findings, and own questions and contributions, and finally the main objective of the investigation.

Material and methods: this section should report on the characteristics and size of the sample. In studies with humans, they must include informed consent and indicate the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Human studies should include in the description of the Material used, the approval of the Ethics Committee of the institution where the study was realized, following the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki of 1975 and revised in 2013. The use of names, initials or the clinical history number should be avoided. Photographs showing the face of patients will not be accepted without a signed statement of informed consent. Those studies involving animals must follow the corresponding ethics code, according to the established international standard guidelines for the use, care and treatment of laboratory animals. Procedures should be described with sufficient detail as to allow the work to be replicated. Non-original methods must have their reference and the equipment and reagents used must be accompanied by the name and country of the supplying companies.

Statistical analysis. The software used must be reported, mentioning the version and the statistical tests used.

Results, should be presented in past tense following a logical sequence in the Text, Tables and Figures. Laboratory values and units must be expressed in the International System of Units (SI). The information presented in Tables and Figures should not be repeated in the text. Only the important observations must be detailed.

Discussion, must emphasize on the new and important findings of the study and compare the results obtained with those previously reported on other investigations. It should present the new finding’s implications, their limitations, as well as suggest the outlines of future investigations and end with a conclusion according to the results obtained.

Review Articles. Should be written, preferentially, by a specialist in the field object of the review and should contain the author’s own contributions, either in the bibliography or with a discussion of the subject matter reviewed. No more than four authors are allowed. Reviews that consist only in a bibliographical description of the subject, without including an analysis, will not be accepted. The text body of the Reviews is free, although it is convenient to subdivide it in sections.

Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses, must follow the indications established internationally by PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses) or any other similar method.

Clinical Case Reports. Should consist in the presentation of uncommon clinical cases in the daily medical practice. They must include a brief introduction about the pathology to be studied, a detailed description of the case, followed by a discussion and the corresponding bibliographical support. Limit the discussion to the most notable of the case.

Letters to the Editor, should be commentaries to recent publications in our Journal and if possible, should not exceed two pages in length, including references, if any.

Tables. The Tables will be presented on separate sheets. The numbering of the Tables will be in Arabic characters. They must have their titles centered and without acronyms or abbreviations. Lines should not separate columns. The clarification notes referring to the expressed in the body of the Table should be incorporated as footnotes, with the cor responding symbol, at the bottom. The journal does not accept the expression “Source of Information” in the Tables that refer to the results presented in the manuscript, but only in those that come from other material. Care should be taken to place commas before decimals if the article is written in Spanish or periods if it is in English.

Figures, should be submitted considering the following general points: each figure should be submitted as a separate  file  in the same software in which it was generated (GraphPad Prism® for example). Figures should be numbered consecutively, in Arabic numerals, according to the order of citation in the text. Make sure to use uniform font size and style in all figures. Figure legends must be sent separately and not appended to the figure, indicating their number, and with sufficient information to allow their interpretation, without having to recur to the text. Color Figures must be in TIFF or RGB (red, gree, blue) and have at least 600 dpi.

Photographs, may be in black and white or in color, they must have adequate contrast for their reproduction and be in JPG or TIF format, and comply with the following conditions: photographs in color or in shades of gray must have a minimum of 300 dpi. In the case of electronic microphotographs, extreme care must be taken with the sharpness of the reported findings and detailing them by means of symbols. The magnification used in the microphotographs should also be indicated. The legends must not be incorporated into the photograph and these must be presented on a separate page, in a sufficiently explanatory way, without having to turn to the text, and taking care of the description if the figure is in color or in shades of gray. Radiographic images should not contain legends that identify the patient. The Journal will not accept photographs or figures taken from other magazines without the respective authorization.

All References must be cited in the text as superscript Arabic numerals. They must be cited consecutively in the order of appearance in the text, written accurately, as they appear in the original work, and following the international norms described in “Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals”, updated in December 2021, http:// www.icmje.org; i.e., first, last name (using capitals only at the beginning) and first name initials, without periods, for all authors. The names of all authors must be typed in bold face and each one separated by commas. The terms “y col.” or “et al.” are not acceptable. This must be followed by the full title of the article using capital letters only at the beginning and in proper names. Next, the abbreviated journal title, according to the indications of the Index Medicus (http://nlm.nih.gov), followed by the year of publishing; volume: and first and last page numbers separated by a hyphen. This must be followed by the digital object identifier of the work (DOI). Unpublished observations, personal communications or papers sent for publication will not be accepted as references; however, these may appear in the text, in parenthesis. If the author is an Organization, its name should be cited as a reference.

 

Examples:

 

• References of periodic publications: Jaspe RC, Sulbaran Y, Hidalgo M, Loureiro CL, Moros ZC, Garzaro D, Rangel HR, Pujol FH. A simple method for detection of mutations in amino acid 452 of the Spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 using restriction enzyme analysis. Invest Clin 2021; 62(4): 371-377. https://doi.org/10.22209/ v62n4a07.
• Book References: Kandel ER, Schwartz JH, Jessell TM. Principles of neural science. New York: McGraw Hill; 2001, p 1227-1246.
• Articles in Books: Molina-Vilchez R, Diez-Ewald M, Fernández G. Anemia y En: Zighelboim I, Guariglia D, Eds. Clínica Obstétrica. Caracas: Disinlimed; 2000. P 570-577.
• Congress Abstracts: Metabolic benefits of lifestyle intervention in the clinical setting: a pilot study in Latinos with pre-diabetes form Venezuela, South América.
• Victoria Stepenka, Yoleida Rivas, Juan Casal, Roberto Gutiérrez, Elena Ryder, Hermes Florez. 70th. Scientific Sessions. American Diabetes Association. 25-29 junio, 2010, Or lando, USA.
• Thesis: Leon-N I. Caracterización de aislamientos del complejo Sporothrix Provenientes de diferentes regiones de Venezuela [Tesis de Maestria] Caracas: IVIC; 2013.
• Online Journals: Calvo B, Melo A, Perozo A, Hernández M, Francisco E, Hagen F, Meçs J, Colombo J. First report of Candida auris in America: clinical and microbio- logical aspects of 18 episodes of candidaemia. J Infect 2016 [citado, 2017 febrero 10] Disponible en: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j. inF.2016.07.008.

Limit to a maximum of 50 references for original articles and 100 for Narrative and Systematic Reviews or Meta-analyses.

It is recommended to check the last number of our journal as a guide in the preparation of the manuscript consulting the web page: http://sites.google.com/site/ revistainvestigacionesclinicas/home.

Check List

• Cover letter signed by all authors accepting a significant participation in the work, that are in agreement with the content of the manuscript and that the content has not been published or submitted for publication Corresponding author must be identified.
• Pages sequentially numerated.
• Title in English.
• Title in Spanish.
• Short Title in the main language used in the manuscript.
• Full names of the authors without professional title.
• Postal and e-mail addresses of the institution or institutions where the work was performed.
• Non structured abstracts in English and Spanish that state the purpose, basic procedures, main findings and principal conclusions of the No more than 250 words.
• Concise Introduction regarding to the study.
• Precise description of Material and Methods, or Patients and Methods, with references.
• Specification of statistical analysis (when required).
• Results described clearly and in logical order without extended discussion of their significance.
• Discussion based in findings of the study.
• All references mentioned in the Reference list are cited in the text according tospecifications of the journal.
• Unpublished results, personal communications or congress presentations without abstracts are not recommended in the reference list.
• Tables with footnotes below the table body.
• Illustrations and photographs according to journal specifications.
• Figures, illustrations and photographs with legends in separate pages.
• Conflict of competence.
• Source of founding.
• ORCID iD of the authors.
• Contribution of all authors to the papers.

Update: March 2022