IOSPress

Bladder Cancer is an international multidisciplinary journal to facilitate progress in understanding the epidemiology/etiology, genetics, molecular correlates, pathogenesis, pharmacology, ethics, patient advocacy and survivorship, diagnosis and treatment of tumors of the bladder and upper urinary tract. The journal publishes research reports, reviews, short communications, and letters-to-the-editor. In addition, the journal will also have a “News and Views” section for timely commentary. The journal is dedicated to providing an open forum for original research in basic science, translational research and clinical medicine that will expedite our fundamental understanding and improve treatment of tumors of the bladder and upper urinary tract.

SUBMISSION OF MANUSCRIPT

Authors are requested to submit their manuscript electronically to the journal’s editorial management system.

Note that the manuscript should be uploaded as one file with tables and figures included. This file can be a Word document, a PDF, or an embedded zip file (.rar) if separate high resolution figures or a supplemental file such as a video are also to be included with the submission (the file size maximum for a video is 25MB). If the video is too large to submit, please contact blc@iospress.com to arrange a file transfer. For more information about submitting supplementary data see “Supplementary Data.”

Resubmissions should include the manuscript number in the cover letter. Resubmissions should clearly mention that the submission is a Revision and include the reference number in the submission letter. The author's replies to the reviewer comments should be included in the revised manuscript itself (at the top). The revised paper should always be a Word document.

Submission of a Review paper should be clearly mentioned in the cover letter to help the editorial process.

Submission of an article is understood to imply that the article is original and unpublished and is not being considered for publication elsewhere. Any possible conflict of interest, financial or otherwise, related to the submitted work must be clearly indicated in the manuscript. Procedures involving experiments on human subjects should be in accord with the ethical standards of the Committee on Human Experimentation of the institution in which the experiments were done or in accord with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975. Procedures involving experimentation on animal subjects should be in accord with either the guide of the institution in which the experiments were done, or with the National Research Council’s guide for the care and use of laboratory animals.

If the address to which proofs should be sent is different from the correspondence address, authors are kindly requested to indicate this. Both the editor and the publisher should be informed of any changes in either or both of these addresses. Please also supply a direct telephone number and a fax number, if available.

PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPTS

Research Reports

Organization and style of presentation
1. Manuscripts must be written in English. Authors whose native language is not English are recommended to seek the advice of a native English speaker, if possible, before submitting their manuscripts. You can also visit www.internationalscienceediting.com. International Science Editing offers a language and copyediting service to all scientists who want to publish their manuscript in scientific peer-reviewed periodicals and books.

2. Manuscripts should be double spaced throughout with wide margins (2.5cm or 1in), including the abstract and references. Every page of the manuscript, including the title page, references, tables, etc., should include a page number centered at the bottom.

3. Manuscripts should be organized in the following order with headings and subheadings typed on a separate line, without indentation.

Title page
- Title (should be clear, descriptive and concise)
- Full name(s) of author(s)
- Full affiliation(s). Delineate affiliations with lowercase letters.
- Present address of author(s), if different from affiliation
- Running title (45 characters or less, including spaces)
- Complete correspondence address, including telephone number, fax number and email address

Leave the author information blank if double-blind peer review is wished for, but do include the information in the cover letter.

Abstract and Keywords
-The abstract for research papers should follow the "structured abstract" format:
BACKGROUND: 
OBJECTIVE:
METHODS: 
RESULTS:
CONCLUSIONS:
The abstract should try to be no longer than 250 words.
- For other papers such as Reviews, the abstract should be clear, descriptive, and self-explanatory, and no longer than 250 words.
- Include a list of 4-10 keywords. These keywords should be terms from the MeSH database.

Introduction

Materials and Methods

Results

Discussion

Acknowledgments including sources of support

Conflict of Interest
If there is no conflict of interest to declare, do still include this section and insert "The authors have no conflict of interest to report".

References
- Place citations as numbers in square brackets in the text. All publications cited in the text should be presented in a list of references following the text of the manuscript. Only articles published or accepted for publication should be listed in the reference list. Submitted articles can be listed in the text as (author(s), unpublished data).
- All authors should be listed in the reference list.
- References must be listed in Vancouver style:

[1] Rose ME, Huerbin MB, Melick J, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, Kochanek PM, Graham SH. Regulation of interstitial excitatory amino acid concentrations after cortical contusion injury. Brain Res. 2002; 935(12): 406-416.
[2] Murray PR, Rosenthal KS, Kobayashi GS, Pfaller MA. Medical microbiology. 4th ed. St. Louis: Mosby; 2002.
[3] Berkow R, Fletcher AJ, editors. The Merck manual of diagnosis and therapy. 16th ed. Rahway (NJ): Merck Research Laboratories; 1992.
[4] Meltzer PS, Kallioniemi A, Trent JM. Chromosome alterations in human solid tumors. In: Vogelstein B, Kinzler KW, editors. The genetic basis of human cancer. New York: McGrawHill; 2002. p. 93113.
[5] Canadian Cancer Society [homepage on the Internet]. Toronto: The Society; 2006 [updated 2006 May 12; cited 2006 Oct 17]. Available from: http://www.cancer.ca/.

Tables
- Number according to their sequence in the text. The text should include references to all tables.
- Provide each table on a separate page of the manuscript after the references.
- Include a brief and self-explanatory title with any explanations essential to the understanding of the table given in footnotes at the bottom of the table.
- Vertical lines should not be used to separate columns. Leave some extra space between the columns instead.

Figure Legends

Figures
- Number the figures according to their sequence in the text. The text should include references to all figures.
- Figures should preferably be formatted in TIF or EPS format. JPG is also acceptable.
- Figures should be designed with the format of JHD in mind and preferable sized as they will appear when printed. A single column of the journal is 77mm and two columns are 165mm.
- Figures should be at 300 dpi or higher and be cropped to include the figure only (no blank space). CMYK is preferred for color figures.
- On figures where a scale is needed, use bar scales to avoid problems if the figure needs to be reduced.
- Each illustration should have a brief self-explanatory legend that should be typed separately from the figure in the section of the manuscript following the tables.
- Costs for color figures in the print version of the journal are as follows: 1 figure - 650 euro; 2 figures - 900 euro; 3 figures - 1050 euro; 4 figures - 1200 euro; 5 figures - 1350 euro. Cost for each additional color figure will be 150 euro. Color figures are free in the electronic version of the journal. You may opt to send in both black/white figures for print, and color figures for the online PDF (please adjust the figure legend appropriately).

Supplementary Data
Supplementary data can be submitted with the manuscript, inserted at the end of the document. Legends should be included for each item. Each supplementary item should not exceed the file size of 10MB. Supplemental videos can also be submitted (see top of page), and a title and legend should be included as Supplementary Material within the manuscript. Large datasets should be hosted on the author’s own or institute’s website or in an appropriate database.

Reviews
Reviews should be authoritative and topical and provide comprehensive and balanced coverage of a timely and/or controversial issue. Reviews should be prepared as detailed above for a Research Report, omitting Introduction through Discussion, and include a conclusion.

Short Communications
A short communication is an article of original scholarship of unusual interest of less than 1500 words (not including references). An abstract of 100 words or less should be included with no subdivison of text into sections. References should be formatted as above. A total of two tables and/or figures are allowed.

Hypotheses
A hypothesis article should be a balanced and insightful consideration of a topic with novel hypotheses well presented and supported. The article should be prepared as a Research Report but without Methods or Results sections.

Case Reports
Clinical case reports will be considered for publication, but they should feature some novelty, such as improving our understanding of a pathomechanism.

Book Reviews
Book reviews should be 750 words or less and without sections. Suggestions can be proposed to the Editors-in-Chief.

Letters to the Editor
Authors can submit comments of 1000 words or less concerning prior articles published in BLC to the Editors-in-Chief through the Editorial Office.

Commentaries
Commentaries can be around 1000 words with an abstract and no other subdivisions.

REMEMBER TO INCLUDE

In cover letter:
- Name, postal address, phone number, fax number and e-mail address of the corresponding author.
- Name of an Associate Editor with expertise in the area of the study (if no Associate Editor is suitable, the Editorial Office will handle the submission).
- Statement that all authors have contributed to the work, agree with the presented findings, and that the work has not been published before nor is being considered for publication in another journal.
- A list of at least 4-6 potential reviewers knowledgeable in the area of the study and potential reviewer conflicts.
- Statement that procedures involving experiments on human subjects are done in accord with the ethical standards of the Committee on Human Experimentation of the institution in which the experiments were done or in accord with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975. 
- Statement that procedures involving experimentation on animal subjects are done in accord with either the guide of the institution in which the experiments were done, or with the National Research Council's guide for the care and use of laboratory animals.

In manuscript:
- Compliance with guidelines on human experimentation as well as protocol approval by a local Institutional Review Board should be specified.
- Compliance with guidelines of animal experimentation as well as protocol approval by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee should be specified.
- Statement of all financial and material support for this research and any potential conflicts should also be clearly identified in the the acknowledgment and Conflict of Interest sections. If there is no Conflict-of-Interest then still add this statement.

Resubmissions
Resubmissions should include the manuscript number and a reference that the paper is a revision. The point-by-point response to the previous reviews should be included at the top of the manuscript. 

Financial Disclosure
All affiliations with or financial involvement (e.g., employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, royalties) with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or in financial competition with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript are completely disclosed in the letter of submission.

All financial and material support for this research and work are clearly identified in the manuscript including listing of support specified in the letter of submission that might constitute or give the appearance of influencing the findings, based on the judgment of the Editor-in-Chief in consultation with the Associate Editor handling the review of the manuscript.

Policy regarding the NIH Public Access Policy mandate (PubMed Central)
IOS Press grants authors permission to supply their own version of the article (not the published PDF version) to PubMed Central, at no charge.

Alternatively, the author can submit the final published version of the article, which can be ordered from IOS Press. This service costs US$120 / €100 and an order form will be sent with the galley proof of the article to the corresponding author.

Orders for a pdf of published articles can also be sent to order@iospress.nl.

Authors who have paid the Article Processing Charges (APCs) for Open Access may freely deposit the final pdf.

The guidelines for PubMed Central submission can be found here. Submission Method C.

This policy is also applicable to European Pubmed Central submissions.

PRE-PRESS AND PROOFS

Accepted articles will be placed online as "pre-press" articles shortly after acceptance. This process will occur before the author receives proofs. The pre-press file will remain as the uncorrected proof version until the article is published in an issue and the final published version replaces the pre-press file.

The corresponding author will receive a pdf proof and is asked to check this proof carefully (the publisher will execute a cursory check only). Corrections other than printer's errors, however, should be avoided. Costs arising from such corrections will be charged to the authors.

OPEN ACCESS OPTION

The IOS Press Open Library® offers authors an Open Access (OA) option. By selecting the OA option, the article will be freely available from the moment it is published, also in the pre-press module. In the Open Library® the article processing charges are paid in the form of an Open Access Fee. Authors will receive an Open Access Order Form upon acceptance of their article. Open Access is entirely optional. See also our website for more information about this option IOS Press Open Library®.

COPYRIGHT

Copyright of your article
Authors submitting a manuscript do so on the understanding that they have read and agreed to the terms of the IOS Press Author Copyright Agreement.

Quoting from other publications
An author, when quoting from someone else's work or when considering reproducing figures or table from a book or journal article, should make sure that he is not infringing a copyright. Although in general an author may quote from other published works, he should obtain permission from the holder of the copyright if he wishes to make substantial extracts or to reproduce tables, plates or other figures. If the copyright holder is not the author of the quoted or reproduced material, it is recommended that the permission of the author should also be sought. Material in unpublished letters and manuscripts is also protected and must not be published unless permission has been obtained. Submission of a paper will be interpreted as a statement that the author has obtained all the necessary permission. A suitable acknowledgement of any borrowed material must always be made.

COMPLIMENTARY COPY AND PURCHASE

Complimentary copy
The corresponding author of a contribution to the journal is entitled to receive 1 author’s copy of the pdf free of charge, unless otherwise stated. Free copies will not be provided for conference proceedings and abstract issues.

How to order reprints, a pdf file, journals, or IOS Press books
An order form for reprints, additional journal copies or a non-watermarked pdf file will be provided along with the pdf proof.
If you wish to order reprints of an earlier published article, please contact the publisher for a quotation. IOS Press, Fax: +31 20 6870039. Email: editorial@iospress.nl.

An author is entitled to 25% discount on IOS Press books. See Author's Discount (25%) on all IOS Press book publications.