Instructions for Authors

(May 21st, 2025)

I. Manuscript Preparation

1. Manuscript Types

Article Types Abstract
(Word Limit)		 Headings
(Word Limit*)		 Figures/Tables** References***
Review articles Unstructured
(250)		 Not specified
(6,000)		 ≤8 ≤100
Original research articles Introduction, Methods, Results, Conclusions
(250)		 Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion
(6,000)		 ≤8 ≤50
Short communications Unstructured
(150)		 -
(1,500)		 ≤2 ≤15
Case reports Unstructured
(150)		 Introduction, Case report, Discussion
(3,000)		 ≤8 ≤15
Data Unstructured
(150)		 -
(3,000)		 ≤8 ≤15
Reports Unstructured
(150)		 -
(3,000)		 ≤8 ≤15

*Word Limit: applicable only to the main text and excludes the abstract, references, table, and figure legends.
**Figures/Tables: total number of figures and tables allowed for the manuscript type.
***References:maximum number of references allowed for the manuscript type.

2. General Instructions

All articles should be written in English in a standard, readable font, double-spaced throughout, with adequate margins on all sides. Use a single space between words and after punctuation, including periods, colons, and semicolons.

These instructions align with the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Where this Journal's instructions do not specify a requirement, authors should follow the current ICMJE Recommendations.

English Editing Support

Articles submitted by non-native English speakers will not be considered for publication unless they have undergone final editing and correction by an editor specialized in medical English of sufficient quality.

The Journal recommends authors using one of the following English editing services:

Wiley Editing Services:http://wileyeditingservices.com/en/
PALABRA:https://www.palabra.co.jp
Editage:https://www.editage.jp/services/english-editing/standard-editing-plan
HONYAKU CENTER:https://www.honyakucenter.jp/
San Francisco Edit:https://www.sfedit.net
Enago:https://www.enago.jp/

Authors whose first language is not English should indicate the name of English editing or writing support services in the Acknowledgement and must submit a Certificate of Editing signed by the editor at the time of submission.

If the quality of the English in the manuscript is deemed inadequate, the manuscript will be returned to the author(s) for correction and resubmission.

3. Manuscript Formatting

The items described in the sections below should each be prepared on separate pages for submission:

3-1.Title page
The following information should be included on the first page.

3-2.Abstract
The A abstract should summarize the content and conclusions of the paper. For original research articles, a structured abstract(≦ 250 words) is required and must be organized under the headings Introduction, Methods, Results, and Conclusions, stating the study background, methods, main findings, and conclusions supported by the results. For all other article types, a structured abstract is optional. Abbreviations must be defined at first use. Keywords (5 or fewer) should appear below the Abstract. Reports of clinical trials must include the trial registry name and registration number in the abstract. See further information on clinical trials below.

3-3.Main Text
The main text of original research articles should be organized into the following sections: Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. Each heading should be indicated at the beginning of the respective section.

Structure of the section headings (Original research articles only):

Structure of the section headings (For case reports):

3-4.Abbreviations
Abbreviations should be defined at first use in the abstract, main text, tables and figure legends. Do not include abbreviations in the article title. Common statistical abbreviations, e.g., p, SD and SE, do not require definition.

3-5.Disclosures
Authors must include the following disclosure statements for the submitted manuscript. The following information should be added at the end of the main text before the Reference section:

3-6.References
The authors are responsible for the accuracy of all references.

3-7.Tables and Figures
Tables, figures, and photographs should be submitted on individual pages, in the order they are to appear in the text, and numbered accordingly. Abbreviations used in tables should be defined in table footnotes below the relevant table (e.g., “TAI: transcatheter arterial infusion”), except for abbreviations in common use (e.g., MRI, CT). Common statistical abbreviations, e.g., SD and SE, also require no accompanying explanation. Footnote symbols (†, ‡, §, ¶) should be used and asterisks (*,**, ***) should be reserved for p-values.
If any copyrighted or previously published material is used in the manuscript, author must obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) prior to submission, cite the source, and indicate that permission has been obtained to use such materials in the corresponding figure legend or table footnote, as required by the copyright owner(s). The authors must upload a PDF copy of the written permission to the online manuscript submission system at the time of submission.

Tables: Each table should have a short title above it and footnotes below, when necessary. Tables should contain no vertical or diagonal lines. Horizontal lines should be used to clearly indicate the top and bottom of the table. Units such as percentages (%) should be indicated in parentheses in the table headings, when possible.
Figures and photographs: Each figure and photograph should be submitted on a separate page, and all figure legends should be provided included together on a separate page in the manuscript. The resolution of all images should be at least 300 dpi, and data files should be submitted as TIFF, JPG or EPS files. Figures submitted as PowerPoint files are not acceptable. Microscopy photographs should clearly specify the stain and magnification used.

See the samples for manuscript formatting

II. Clinical Trials

In accordance with the ICMJE policy on trial registration, all clinical trials must be registered with a public trials registry before the enrollment of first participant enrollment. The ICMJE defines clinical trials as any research project that prospectively assigns people or groups of people to an intervention, with or without concurrent comparison or control groups, to study the cause-and-effect relationship between a health-related intervention and a health outcome. Health-related interventions include but are not limited to drugs, surgical procedures, devices, behavioral and educational interventions dietary interventions, quality improvement interventions, and process-of-care changes.

The Journal requires all clinical trials to be registered with registries that are accessible to the public at no charge, open to all prospective registrants, managed by a not-for-profit organization, have a mechanism to ensure the validity of the registration data, and are electronically searchable.

Submitted manuscripts must include the unique registration number and the name of the registry on the title page. For details regarding the required minimal registration data set, please refer to the ICMJE website.

The Journal accepts registration from the following list of registries as well as others listed at ICMJE website:

In reporting randomized clinical trials, authors must comply with the CONSORT guidelines. The CONSORT checklist must be completed and provided to the Journal at the time of manuscript submission. The trial flow diagram should be provided as a Supplementary File.

Reporting Guidelines

Various reporting guidelines have been developed for different study designs. Authors are encouraged to follow published standard reporting guidelines for the study discipline.

Please access equator-network to find the guideline appropriate for your study.

It is extremely important that when completing any Reporting Guideline checklist, you should consider amending your manuscript to ensure that it addresses all relevant reporting criteria prior to submission. The reporting guideline is intended to help improve the completeness and transparency of your manuscript. The objective is not solely to complete the reporting checklist, but to use it to guide the writing and revision of your manuscript. Taking the time to ensure your manuscript meets these reporting requirements will the clarity and quality of your manuscript.

Data Sharing

The Journal encourages the authors of manuscripts reporting clinical trials to share de-identified individual participant data and related documents where appropriate.

As required by the ICMJE, manuscripts that report the results of a clinical trial must include a data sharing statement and provide the trial registry name and registration number with a link to the trial registration. The data sharing statement should specify the following information:

The data sharing statement is published alongside their paper.

III. Manuscript Submission

Submit manuscript electronically via ScholarOne system (https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tohojmed) in the following order: Title page, Main Text, Tables, and Figures (≧ 300 dpi). The total size of the uploaded files must not exceed 100 MB. Authors are required to upload COI Declaration Form (Form 1) and Contract (Form 2). Manuscripts that do not adhere to these instructions will be returned to the corresponding author without review.

IV. Peer Review Process

1. General Process

All submitted manuscripts will be initially assessed by the Editor-in-Chief to evaluate eligibility and suitability for the Journal. If the manuscript passes this initial screening, it will be assigned to a Handling Editor. The Handling Editor will invite peer reviewers as appropriate. Manuscripts will generally be sent to two experts for peer review, and to a statistical reviewer when necessary. If the reviewer recommendations conflict, the Editorial Committee may appoint an additional reviewer to adjudicate. Reviewer identities will not be disclosed.

The Handling Editor will make a recommendation based on the reviews, and the final editorial decision (acceptance, major or minor revision, or rejection) will be made by the Handling Editor and the Editor-in-Chief. The decision letters along with the comments by the editors and reviewers will be sent to the corresponding author.

In accordance with Committee on Publication Ethics Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers, reviewers are not allowed to contact the authors directly without permission from the Journal. Reviewers must keep all manuscript materials and information obtained through peer review strictly confidential.

2. Revised Manuscripts

If a manuscript receives a decision of minor or major revision, authors should submit the revised manuscript within two months from the date that the decision letter is sent. When submitting a revised manuscript, authors must include a detailed point-by-point response to the comments by the editors and the reviewers. In the revised manuscript file, authors are required to highlight, or underline in red, all revised parts. All authors must approve all revisions, corrections and amendments prior to resubmission.

3. Editors and Journal Staff as Authors

Manuscripts submitted by editors, editorial board members, or journal staff will follow the same process as outlined above. However, they are excluded from any editorial decision process of their own manuscript and have no access to the manuscript nor to information about the review process other than what is provided in the editor’s decision letter. The editorial office will assign the paper to an editor who is not an author on the paper nor has any conflict of interest with the authors. Such manuscript should include a Conflict of Interest statement disclosing any potential conflict of interest.

V. Post-Acceptance Process

1. Proofreading

After a manuscript is accepted for publication, the copy-edited version will be sent to the corresponding author. Authors are required to review and correct the manuscript based on the copy editor’s instructions and return it to the Editorial Office at their earliest convenience. After copy editing is complete, page proofs weill be sent to the corresponding author for correction of typographical minor errors only.

No substantial changes are permitted at this stage unless specifically requested by the Editorial Committee. Authors must return corrected proofs promptly to ensure timely publication.

2. Publication

After proofreading, the manuscript will be published on the Journal’s official website and made accessible through J-STAGE.

3. Post-Publication Corrections

After publication, any necessary corrections will be issued as an Erratum, which linked to the original article.

VI. Editorial Policy and Publication Ethics

The Journal adheres to the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals (http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf) issued by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and to the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (a joint statement by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the World Association for Medical Editors (WAME) and the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA).

Authorship

All authors listed on the manuscript must meet the following criteria described by the ICMJE in the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly work in Medical Journals:

The corresponding author must ensure that the manuscript is read and approved by all authors prior to submission.

Contributors who do not meet the criteria above should not be listed as authors. Guest or honorary authorship is not permitted.

Those who do not qualify for an authorship may be acknowledged individually or together as a group under a single heading with “Acknowledgements”. Examples of activities that do not qualify for authorship are acquisition of funding, general supervision of a research group, or general administrative support and writing assistance, language editing, and proofreading.

Authors should discuss and agree on the order of authorship before submission. Any changes in authorship (order, addition, or removal) between initial submission and the final decision must be approved by all authors and communicated to the Journal.

Adding, deleting, or changing the author names and their order is not permitted after the acceptance of the manuscript for publication.

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-Assisted Tools/Technologies

In consonance with COPE’s position statement, WAME’s recommendations, and ICMJE’s Recommendation, the Journal does not allow artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted tools/technologies, such as Large Language Models (LLMs), chatbots (such as ChatGPT), or image creators, to be listed as an author or co-author. these tools cannot take responsibility for the accuracy, integrity, and originality of the work, thus do not meet the ICMJE’s criteria for authorship.Human authors are fully responsible for all contents of the submitted work, including any use of AI-assisted tools or technologies. AI tools should not be cited as authors. Authors are responsible for ensuring the manuscript is free from plagiarism, including in text and AI-generated produced images. Authors must disclose any use of AI-assisted tools or technologies at submission and describe how they were used in the cover letter and in the manuscript (e.g., in the Methods or a similar section), including use in writing, image/graphic generation, and data collection or analysis.

Exclusive Submission

Manuscripts that have been previously published or are under consideration by another journal in any language, will not be considered for publication.

Conflict of Interest and Source of Funding

Authors must explicitly state whether any potential conflicts of interest (COI) exist. Any COI related to the study must be disclosed on the title page under the heading “Conflicts of Interest”, using the following examples:
“A (author name) received honoraria from Z (entity name); B holds an advisory role in Y; C is an employee of Company X.”
If there are no COIs, authors must state: ‘The authors declare no conflicts of interest.’If a manuscript is accepted for publication, the disclosures will be published as they appear in this section. The COI Declaration Form (Form 1) must be signed by all authors and uploaded with the manuscript.

If authors receive financial support for the research or preparation of the manuscript, including monetary contributions, equipment, study drugs , cell lines, or other types of contribution, such support should be clearly described in the Acknowledgments section, together with the name of the funding organizations and relevant grant numbers.

Reviewers should disclose to the editor who invited them to review the manuscript their own conflicts of interest as soon as they realize they may not be able to provide an impartial review. We recommend they follow the information provided by COPE here.

An editor who realizes a conflict of interest with a manuscript or person involved in the peer review process must recuse himself/herself from further handling of that manuscript/relationship and ask the editorial office to reassign the paper to another editor or ask another editor to arbitrate the relationship in question.

Research Ethics

  1. Ethical Approval and Participant Consent for Human Research

    2. All research involving human participants must include the following statements in the manuscript:

      1. ）Ethics Committee/IRB Approval:
        • "The study protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of XXXXX (approval number: YYYYY). (e.g. Faculty of medicine, Toho University (No. YYYYY))."
      2. ) Participant Consent:
        • "Written informed consent was obtained from all participants involved in the study."
        • An opt-out consent procedure was used, and participants were given the opportunity to decline participation.
        • If ethics committee/IRB approval was not required, this must be clearly stated in the manuscript, with the reason.
        • If the research protocol was approved by the ethics committee/ IRB outside Toho University and Toho University Hospitals, authors should submit a copy of the ethics approval and the approved research protocol along with the manuscript files. The Journal may request additional information and/or documentation related to the research protocol during editorial assessment or peer review.
  2. Informed Consent for Case Reports

    3. For case reports, informed consent must be obtained from the patient or relevant persons (e.g., parent or legal guardian) before submission.

    • Include this statement in the manuscript: "Informed consent for publication of clinical details and/or images was obtained from ZZZZZ (e.g., patient/parent/guardian)."
  3. Participant Privacy and Anonymity

    4. Patient privacy must be protected; identifying information should not be included in manuscripts unless essential for scientific purposes and with written consent.

    • Authors should inform patients of any identifiable material that may appear online or in print.
    • If consent cannot be obtained, publication is possible only if the information is sufficiently anonymized.
    • For deceased patients, permission should be sought from relatives.
    • If the relatives are not contactable the editorial committee of the Journal will make a decision on whether the manuscript should be published without a relative’s consent.
  4. Approval for Animal Research

    5. All animal research must have approval from the authors' Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) or equivalent ethics committee(s), and must have been conducted according to applicable national and international guidelines. Approval must be received prior to beginning research.

  5. Data Availability and Reporting

    6. Authors are required to provide clear and transparent reporting of all data used in their study. This includes submitting any relevant datasets, such as new DNA sequences, protein structures, or other data types, to appropriate public repositories (e.g., Gene Bank for DNA sequences) and including the corresponding accession numbers in the manuscript. Authors must also ensure that any supplementary data, materials, or methods are accessible for review and verification. The availability of data should be stated in the manuscript, along with any applicable links to public repositories or supplementary materials.

Misconducts and Breach of Publication Ethics

The Journal follows the recommended procedures outlined by COPE International Standards for responsible research publication for authors and editors when dealing with allegations of misconduct. Please see here for the information.

VIII. Fees

Submission fees

All submissions to the Journal by the non-members of the Medical Society of Toho University must be accompanied by a submission fee of 10,000 Japanese yen. No submission fee is required, if the corresponding author of the submission is a member of the Medical Society of Toho University.

Publication fees

Authors are charged post-acceptance publication fees which include, but not limited to, page/color-independent fees and copy-editing fees at the time of publication of your paper. Offprints can be ordered upon production of your manuscript. For more information about the fees, please see here.

IX. Publication Date

The Journal is published quarterly (March, June, October, December), and the editorial committee will be solely responsible for all decisions regarding submission selection or rejection, order of appearance, and presentation style in any given issue, and other editorial decisions, as applicable. The guiding principles governing publication order include (but are not limited to) submission type and submission date.

X. Copyright

Forms:

Form 1: COI Declaration for Manuscripts Submitted to the Toho Journal of Medicine
Form 2: Contract
Form 3: Copyright Permission Request Form

Inquiries/submissions
Toho Journal of Medicine Editorial Office
3-46-10, Nishigahara, Kita-ku, Tokyo, 114-0024, Japan
e-mail: tohojmed@kyorin.co.jp