Manuscript Format and Structure: Case Reports

TITLE PAGE
The title should be short, specific and informative. The full first name, initial(s), and surname of
each author should be followed by his or her department, institution, city with postcode, and
country. The fax, telephone number and Email address of the corresponding author should also be
provided. For more information, please refer to Guidelines For Author.

It is important that authors ensure the following: (i) all names have the correct spelling and are in
the correct order (first name, then family name); (ii) initials are correct. Occasionally, the
distinction between surnames and forenames can be ambiguous, and this is to ensure that the
authors’ full surnames and forenames are tagged correctly, for accurate indexing online.

ABSTRACT
The second page of the manuscript should contain the Abstract, which must not exceed 250 words.
The Abstract should be comprehensible to readers before they have read the paper, and reference
citations must be avoided. Following the abstract, 3-6 key words should be given for subject
indexing. For more information, please refer to Guidelines For Author.

ARTICLE STRUCTURE
• Introduction
• Case Report
• Discussion
• Acknowledgements
• Conflict of Interest statement
• Ethical Approval
• Consent
• Guarantor
• References
• Tables, Figure legends, Figure
ABBREVIATIONS
Non-standard abbreviations should be defined at the first occurrence and introduced only where
multiple use is made. Authors should not use abbreviations in headings.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Acknowledgements and details of non-financial support must be included at the end of the text
before references and not in footnotes. Personal acknowledgements should precede those of
institutions or agencies. Please note that acknowledgement of funding bodies and declarations
regarding conflicts of interest should be given in separate Funding and Conflicts of interest
sections, respectively.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST
Conflicts of interest must be declared in a separate section entitled 'Conflict of Interest'. If there
are no conflicts, please state 'No conflicts of interest'.

ETHICAL APPROVAL
Details of ethical approval should be indicated in a separate section. For more information, please
refer to Journal Policies. If no approval is required, this must be stated in this section.

CONSENT
A statement on patient consent must be indicated in a separate section. For more information,
please refer to the Journal Policies.

GUARANTOR
One or more of the authors must be nominated as a guarantor of the paper under the heading
‘Guarantor’ at the end of the manuscript. For more information, please refer to Journal Policies on
authorship.

REFERENCES
References is advisibly not to exceed 25 in number but not less than 10, and should in general be
limited to the last decade. Avoid using abstracts as references. Information from manuscripts
submitted but not yet accepted should be cited in the text as “unpublished observations” with
written permission from the source. Papers accepted but not yet published may be included as
references; designate the journal and add “Forthcoming”. Avoid citing “personal communication”
unless it provides essential information not available publically, name the person and date of
communication, obtain written permission and confirmation of accuracy from the source of a
personal communication. Authors is recommended to use reference management software, in
writing the citations and references such as: Mendeley®, Zotero®, EndNote®, and Reference
Manager®.
Here are some examples of the references:
1. Standard journal article
Up to three authors, list all the authors.
 Halpern SD, Ubel PA, Caplan AL (2002). Solid-organ transplantation in HIV-infected
patients. N Engl J Med 347, 284-287
More than three authors, list the first three authors, followed by et al.
 Rose ME, Huerbin MB, Melick J, et al (2002). Regulation of interstitial excitatory amino
acid concentrations after cortical contusion injury. Brain Res 935, 40-46

2. Chapter in a book
Meltzer PS, Kallioniemi A, Trent JM (2002). Chromosome alterations in human solid tumors.
In: Vogelstein B, Kinzler KW (eds). The genetic basis of human cancer, New York, McGraw-
Hill, p 93-113

3. Homepage/Web site
Cancer-Pain.org (2002). New York: Association of Cancer Online Resources, Inc.; c2000-01.
[updated 2002 May 16]. Available from http://www.cancer-pain.org/. Accessed July 9, 2002

TABLES
Tables and its title should be included in the text. Tables should be numbered in arabic numerals,
captions should be brief, clearly indicating the purpose or content of each table. Provide a footnote
to each table, identifying in alphabetical order all abbreviations used. Number tables consecutively
in the order of their first citation in the text and supply a brief title for each. Do not use internal
horizontal or vertical lines. Give each column a short or an abbreviated heading. Explain all
nonstandard abbreviations and explanatory matters in footnotes, and for explanatory matters use
the following symbols, in sequence: *, †, ‡, §, ||, ¶, **, ††, ‡‡, §§, ||||, ¶¶, etc. Identify statistical
measures of variations, such as standard deviation and standard error of the mean. Be sure that
each table is cited in the text. If you use data from another published or unpublished source, obtain
permission and acknowledge that source fully. For more information, please refer to Guidelines
for Authors.

FIGURE LEGENDS
Legends for figures are written with Arabic numerals corresponding to the figures. When symbols,
arrows, numbers, or letters are used to identify parts of the illustrations, identify and explain each
one clearly in the legend. Explain the internal scale and identify the method of staining in
photomicrographs. For more information, please refer to Guidelines for Authors.

FIGURES
Although authors are encouraged to send the highest-quality figures possible, for peer-review
purposes, a wide variety of formats, sizes, and resolutions are accepted. For more information,
please refer to Guidelines for Authors.