Focus and Scope

Published monthly since may 2023 by a group of renowned scientists in the field of radiology, nuclear medicine and applied science, the Swiss Journal of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine is an open-minded approach to independent research. We could learn from the recent past that even in honest and factual scientific debates, political and ideological influences became more and more important. The journal scientifically reviews submitted articles based on facts, regardless of the race, nationality, gender or opinion of the authors. Each month, the journal publishes peer-reviewed original research, authoritative reviews, balanced commentaries on important articles and expert opinions on new techniques and technologies.

Publishing schedule

SJORANM is published online approximately 9 times a year (on Dec, Jan and August there will be no issues).

Mission

Vision

SJORANM will become the leading Swiss journal for new, important and actionable discoveries in medical imaging research that can ultimately lead to better patient care. SJORANM provides physicians and scientists in the field of medical imaging with meaningful information aimed at improving health and reducing the burden of disease.

Open access policy

By virtue of their appearance in this open access journal, articles are free to use after publication under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

Copyright notice

Copyright for articles published in this journal is retained by the authors, with first publication rights granted to the journal. By virtue of their appearance in this open access journal, articles are free to use after publication under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). This license requires that reusers give credit to the creator. It allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, even for commercial purposes.

Editorial office contact information

• Name: Dr. med. Frank Mosler
• Address: SJORANM GmbH
  Schermenweg 151
  CH-3072 Ostermundigen
  Switzerland
• Email: admin@sjoranm.com

Peer Review Process

The Journal operates double-anonymised peer review, meaning that the identity of the authors is hidden from reviewers, and the reviewers’ identities are hidden from the authors. The editors know the identity of both the reviewers and the authors.

Once a submitted manuscript passes initial assessment by the Senior Editor, it will then be passed to an Associate Editor to undergo peer review. The Associate Editor makes a recommendation before the submission is returned to the Senior Editor for the final decision. During the peer review phase, your manuscript is typically sent to 2 reviewers. You may suggest potential reviewers at submission. However, there is no guarantee the suggested reviewers will be selected by the Journal. Recommended reviewers should be experts in their field and able to provide an objective assessment of your manuscript without financial or interpersonal conflicts of interest with any authors. We encourage you to consider reviewers from a diverse range of backgrounds, including those from under-represented communities. At the time of submission, you may request that specific individuals not be used as reviewers of your manuscript. Please do so in your cover letter, along with a brief explanation as to why you want them excluded. However, there is no guarantee these individuals will be excluded by the Journal. Statistical methods should be rigorous, and reporting of statistical findings should be accurate and complete. Editors may request an expert statistical review of any submission containing statistical analysis. If your manuscript is accepted for publication, the reviewer comments will not be published alongside the paper.

Screening for misconduct

All revised manuscripts will be screened using iThenticate to help detect publication misconduct including plagiarism and redundant publication.

Identity/activity detection

The Journal uses Editorial Manager’s Identity Confidence Check tool to build confidence in the identity of authors and reviewers.

Reviewer recognition

To promote recognition of the essential work done by reviewers, the Journal offers reviewers the option to have their reviews verified and automatically listed on their ORCID profile. All SJORANM reviewers receive an annual certificate detailing their work as a SJORANM reviewer in the previous year. In addition, SJORANM offer a CHF 20.- charity voucher to be given as a donation to New Hope in the name of the reviewer and to be paid by the publisher SJORANM GmbH, Switzerland.

Appeals and complaints

Authors may appeal an editorial decision. To do so, please contact the editorial office, providing as much specific detail as possible about why the original decision should be reconsidered. Every appeal will receive a response within a reasonable timeframe. Please do not resubmit your manuscript in the interim. To register a complaint regarding non-editorial decisions, the Journal’s policies and procedures, editors, or staff, please contact us. Complaints will be taken seriously and will be carried forward following COPE guidelines and processes and/or sanctions will be enacted if deemed appropriate.

Publication and Research Ethics

Authorship is limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the design and execution of the work described. Any contributors whose participation does not meet the criteria for authorship should be acknowledged but not listed as an author. The Journal will contact all listed authors at the point of submission to confirm their role. For a detailed definition of authorship, please see the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) definitions of authors and contributors.

The Journal does not allow ghost authorship, where an unnamed author prepares the article with no credit, or guest/gift authorship, where an author who made little or no contribution is listed as an author. The Journal follows Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidance on investigating and resolving these cases. Natural language processing tools driven by artificial intelligence (AI) do not qualify as authors, and the Journal will screen for them in author lists. The use of AI (for example, to help generate content, write code, or process data) should be disclosed both in cover letters to editors and in the Methods or Acknowledgements section of manuscripts. Please see the COPE position statement on Authorship and AI for more details.

After manuscript submission, no authorship changes (including the authorship list, author order, and who is designated as the corresponding author) should be made without the approval of the editor. All co-authors must agree on the change(s), and neither the Journal nor the publisher mediates such disputes. If individuals cannot agree on the authorship of a submitted manuscript, contact the editorial office. The dispute must be resolved among the individuals and their institution(s) before the manuscript can be accepted for publication. If an authorship dispute or change arises after a paper is accepted, contact our Author Support team. COPE provides guidance for authors on resolving authorship disputes.

ORCID

Submitting authors are required to provide an ORCID iD (Open Researcher and Contributor ID)at submission. All authors are encouraged to provide their ORCID iDs (Open Researcher and Contributor IDs) at submission and take advantage of the benefits of participating in ORCID. If you do not already have an ORCID iD, you can register for free via the ORCID website. As ORCID identifiers are collected, they are included in papers and displayed online, both in the HTML and PDF versions of the publication, in compliance with recommended practice issued by ORCID. ORCID functionality online allows users to link to the ORCID website to view an author’s profile and list of publications. ORCID iDs are displayed on web pages and are sent downstream to third parties in data feeds, where supported.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

Authors

The Journal requires all authors to disclose any potential conflict of interest at the point of submission. Conflicts of interest should be clearly labeled and included on the title page. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to ensure that conflicts of interest of all authors are declared to the Journal. A conflict of interest exists when the position, activities, or relationships of an individual, whether direct or indirect, financial or non-financial, could influence or be seen to influence the opinions or activities of the individual. The Journal follows the COPE guidance for any undisclosed conflict of interest that emerges during peer review, production, or after publication.

Peer reviewers

Individuals that have a conflict of interest relating to a submitted manuscript should recuse themselves and will not be assigned to oversee, handle, or peer review the manuscript. If during peer review an editor, reviewer, or author becomes aware of a conflict of interest that was not previously known or disclosed they must inform the Editor-in-Chief immediately.

Editors and Editorial Board members

At initial submission, the corresponding author must declare if the Editor-in-Chief, an Editor, or an Editorial Board Member of the Journal is an author of or contributor to the manuscript. Another Editor without a conflict of interest will oversee the peer review and decision-making process. If accepted, a statement will be published in the paper describing how the manuscript was handled.

Previously published material

You should only submit your manuscript(s) to the Journal if:

• It is original work by you and your co-author(s).
• It is not under consideration, in peer review, or accepted for publication in any other publication.
• It has not been published in any other publication.
• It contains nothing abusive, defamatory, derogatory, obscene, fraudulent, or illegal.

The submitting author must disclose in their cover letter and provide copies of all related or similar preprints, dissertations, manuscripts, published papers, and reports by the same authors (i.e., those containing substantially similar content or using the same, similar, or a subset of data) that have been previously published or posted electronically or are under consideration elsewhere at the time of manuscript submission. You must also provide a concise explanation of how the submitted manuscript differs from these related manuscripts and papers. All related previously published papers should be cited as references and described in the submitted manuscript.

The Journal does not discourage you from presenting your findings at conferences or scientific meetings but recommends that you refrain from distributing complete copies of your manuscripts, which might later be published elsewhere without your knowledge.

Preprints

As an author, you retain the right to make an Author’s Original Version (preprint) available through various channels and this does not prevent submission to the Journal. If accepted, the authors are required to update the status of any preprint, including adding your published paper’s DOI.

Reusing copyrighted material

As an author, you must obtain permission for any material used within your manuscript for which you are not the rightsholder, including quotations, tables, figures, or images. In seeking permissions for published materials, first contact the publisher rather than the author. For unpublished materials, start by contacting the creator. Copies of each grant of permission should be provided to the editorial office of the Journal. The permissions agreement must include the following:

• Nonexclusive rights to reproduce the material in your paper in Swiss Journal of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine
• Rights for use in print and electronic format at a minimum, and preferably for use in any form or medium
• Lifetime rights to use the material
• Worldwide English-language rights

If you have chosen to publish under an open access licence but have not obtained open access re-use permissions for third-party material contained within the manuscript, this must be stated clearly by supplying a credit line alongside the material with the following information:

• Title of content
• Author, Original publication, year of original publication, by permission of [rightsholder]
• This image/content is not covered by the terms of the Creative Commons licence of this publication. For permission to reuse, please contact the rights holder.

Misconduct

Authors should observe high standards with respect to research integrity and publication ethics as set out by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Falsification or fabrication of data including inappropriate image manipulation, plagiarism, including duplicate publication of the author's own work without proper citation, and misappropriation of work are all unacceptable practices.  Allegations of ethical misconduct, both directly and through social media, are treated seriously and will be investigated in accordance with the relevant COPE guidance.

If misconduct has been established beyond reasonable doubt, this may result in one or more of the following outcomes, among others:

• If a submitted manuscript is still under consideration, it may be rejected and returned to the author.
• If a paper has already been published online, depending on the nature and severity of the infraction, either a correction notice will be published and linked to the paper, or retraction of the paper will occur, following the COPE Retraction Guidelines.
• The relevant party’s institution(s) and/or other journals may be informed.

Manuscripts submitted to the Journal may be screened with plagiarism-detection software. Any manuscript may be screened, especially if there is reason to suppose that part or all the of the manuscript has been previously published.

COPE defines plagiarism as “when somebody presents the work of others (data, words or theories) as if they were their own and without proper acknowledgment.”

COPE defines redundant/overlapping publication as “when a published work (or substantial sections from a published work) is/are published more than once (in the same or another language) without adequate acknowledgment of the source/cross-referencing/justification, or when the same (or substantially overlapping) data is presented in more than one publication without adequate cross-referencing/justification, particularly when this is done in such a way that reviewers/readers are unlikely to realise that most or all the findings have been published before.”

COPE defines citation manipulation as “behaviours intended to inflate citation counts for personal gain, such as: excessive self-citation of an authors’ own work, excessive citation to the journal publishing the citing article, and excessive citation between journals in a coordinated manner.”

Data fabrication is defined as intentionally creating fake data or misrepresenting research results. An example includes making up data sets.

Data falsification is defined as manipulating research data with the purpose of intentionally giving a false representation. This can apply to images, research materials, equipment, or processes.

Examples include cropping of gels/images to change context and omission of selected data.

If notified of a potential breach of research misconduct or publication ethics, the Journal editor and editorial office staff may inform OUP and/or the author’s institutional affiliation(s).

Ethical research

The Journal follows Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines on ethical oversight.  We take research integrity seriously, and all research published in the Journal must have been conducted in a fair and ethical manner. Wherever appropriate, the Journal requires that all research be done according to international and local guidelines.

Human subjects

When reporting on human subjects, you should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Helsinki Declaration (1964, amended most recently in 2013), which were developed by the World Medical Association. For non-interventional studies, where ethical approval is not required or where a study has been granted an exemption by an ethics committee, this should be stated within the manuscript with a full explanation. Otherwise, manuscripts must include a statement in the Methods section that the research was performed after approval by a local ethics committee, institutional review board and/or local licencing committee, or that such approval was not required. The name of the authorising body and any reference/permit numbers (where available) should also be stated there. Please be prepared to provide further information to the editorial office upon request.

Human subjects must give written informed consent, or if they are minors or incapacitated, such consent must be obtained from their parents or guardians. Consent forms should cover not only study participation but also the publication of the data collected. Also, any patient or provider information should be anonymised to the extent possible; names and ID numbers should not be used in the text and must be removed from any images (X-rays, photographs, etc.). Please note blanking out an individual’s eyes in a photograph is not an effective way to conceal their identity. In studies where verbal, rather than written, informed consent was obtained, this must be explained and stated within the manuscript. If informed consent is not required or where a study has been granted an exemption, this must be included in the Methods section along with the name of the authorising body. The Journal does not routinely collect consent forms, but authors should be prepared to provide written consent forms signed by the participants or other appropriate documentation to the editorial office upon request. For further guidance and examples, please refer to COPE’s guidance on consent.

Clinical trials

Clinical trials should be registered before enrollment of the first subject in accordance with the criteria outlined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). When reporting primary or secondary analyses from a clinical trial, follow these criteria:

• Provide the trial registration number.
• When the trial acronym is first used in the manuscript, provide the registration number and a link to the trial registration, which should be cited as a reference.
• If your data have been deposited in a public repository and/or are being used in a secondary analysis, please state the unique, persistent data set identifier, and repository name and number.
• When submitting the manuscript, you must disclose any protocol alterations and all posting of results of the submitted work or closely related work in registries.
• In reporting randomized clinical trials, you must comply with published CONSORT guidelines.
  • Complete the recommended checklist and provide it to the editorial office upon submission.
  • In accordance with the CONSORT guidelines and the ICMJE recommendations, all clinical trials submitted to SJORANM publications must be registered in a public trials registry at or before the onset of patient enrolment.
  • The trial registration number should be included in your manuscript, in the main body of the text.
• In reporting observational studies, you must comply with published STROBE guidelines.
  • Complete the recommended checklist and provide it to the editorial office upon submission.
• In reporting systematic reviews and meta-analyses, you must comply with published PRISMA guidelines.
  • Complete the recommended checklist and provide it to the editorial office upon submission.
• In reporting diagnostic/prognostic studies, you must comply with published STARD guidelines.
  • Complete the recommended checklist and provide it to the editorial office upon submission.
• Present the recommended trial flow diagram as a figure in the manuscript or as supplementary material.
• If your manuscript reports on a randomised Phase II/III trial, you must provide a brief description of the statistical plan of the original study that includes the primary and secondary endpoints, power calculation, and sample size.

Where available, registration numbers should be provided not only for the trial you are reporting but also for any other trial mentioned in the manuscript. When the trial acronym is first used in the manuscript, provide the registration number and a link to the trial registration, which should be cited as a reference. 

Animal subjects

Studies involving animals require approval from the relevant institutional ethics committee or institutional animal use and care committee, and the research must be conducted in accordance with applicable national and international guidelines. All such manuscripts must include a statement in the Methods section providing details of the name of the committee(s) that approved the study, as well as the permit or animal licence numbers where available. Where a study has been granted an exemption, this must be stated in the Methods section along with the name of the authorising body. Please be prepared to provide further information to the editorial office upon request.

ARRIVE guidelines

You are encouraged to consult the ARRIVE guidelines recommended by the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3R).

Euthanasia or anesthesia methods

Where applicable, any euthanasia or anesthesia methods must be carried out in accordance with applicable veterinary guidelines. These methods must be described in detail in the manuscript.

Laboratory animals

Manuscripts describing research involving laboratory-based animals must include details on housing, husbandry, and steps taken to reduce suffering. In studies where experimental animals were euthanised, details must be provided on humane endpoints. Details on the planned behavioral observations or physiological measurements used to determine the humane endpoint must be described. You are advised to consult the NC3Rs guide on Humane Endpoints and the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) Guidelines for the Humane Slaughter of Animals.

C4DISC partnership

The Journal is proud to adopt the Joint Statement of Principles of C4DISC.

Inclusive language

As defined by the Linguistic Society of America, “Inclusive language acknowledges diversity, conveys respect to all people, is sensitive to differences, and promotes equal opportunities”. We encourage you to consider using inclusive language and images when preparing your manuscript. For guidelines, please see the C4DISC Guidelines on inclusive language and images.

Availability of data and materials

Where ethically feasible, the Journal strongly encourages authors to make all data and software code on which the conclusions of the paper rely available to readers. Whenever possible, data should be presented in the main manuscript or additional supporting files or deposited in a public repository.

Digital preservation

Content published in the Journal will automatically be deposited into digital preservation services, including CLOCKSS, the Global LOCKSS Network, and Portico. This ensures the long-term preservation of your work. Through LOCKSS, participating institutions can sustain access to content if the Journal were to otherwise be unavailable, even for a short period of time. Should the Journal ever cease to publish, or content would otherwise become permanently unavailable, long-term access to the archives of CLOCKSS and Portico would be triggered. Until such a trigger event were to occur, this content is not available to the public through CLOCKSS and Portico.

Self-archiving policy

Self-archiving refers to posting a copy of your work on a publicly accessible website or repository. You may self-archive versions of your work on your own webpages, on institutional webpages, and in other repositories. The Swiss Journal of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine would appreciate it if you would kindly set a link in your self-archiving site from your work linking to the www.sjoranm.com website.

Publishing Agreements and Charges

Authors, please read each section on the publishing agreement (also called a licence).

Publishing agreements

The Journal offers the only option of publishing under an open access (Creative Commons) licence. There is no charge to publish under an open access licence which allows your paper to be freely accessible to all readers immediately upon online publication. Editorial decisions occur prior to this step. You, the author, retain copyright for the content.

Please note that some funders require open access publication as a condition of funding. If you are unsure whether you are required to publish open access, please check with your funder or institution before submission.

Your papers will be published under the following:

• This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

  This license requires that reusers give credit to the creator. It allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, even for commercial purposes.

Complying with funder mandates

Please note that some funders require open access publication as a condition of funding. If you are unsure whether you are required to publish open access, please do clarify any such requirements with your funder or institution.

Charges

There are no charges.

Colour charges

The Journal does not charge for colour.

Page charges

The Journal does not have page charges.

After Publication

Changes to published papers

The Journal will only make changes to published papers if the publication record is seriously affected by the academic accuracy of the published information. Changes to a published paper will be accompanied by a formal correction notice linking to and from the original paper. As needed, we follow the COPE guidelines on retractions.

For more information and details of how to request changes, including for authors who wish to update their name and/or pronouns, please contact directly our editorial office.

Promoting your work

As the author, you are the best advocate for your work, and we encourage you to be involved in promoting your publication. Sharing your ideas and news about your publication with your colleagues and friends could take as little as 15 minutes and will make a real difference in raising the profile of your research.

While you’re writing take a moment to consider your readers - what words and key phrases would they enter in to a search engine to find articles on the topic you’re writing on?

• Choose a clear, descriptive title. Search engines weight the words in your title most heavily in determining what your article is about, so make sure anyone reading it would get a good idea of the article content from your title.
• Use key words and phrases consistently throughout your article. The more these appear in the text, the more likely your article is to be returned high up in the results list of a search for those words/phrases (and related ones).

A word of caution, while it’s prudent to think about how someone might search on the topic of your article, and how to maximise the chances of them finding your article, don’t let that get in the way of your writing style and make your work repetitive.

You can promote your work by:

• Sharing your paper with colleagues and friends. If your paper is published open access, it will always be freely available to all readers, and you can share it without any limitations. 
• Signing up for an ORCID iD author identifier to distinguish yourself from any other researchers with the same name, create an online profile showcasing all your publications, and increase the visibility of your work.
• Using social media to promote your work. To learn more about self-promotion on social media, see your available social networks. 

Contact us

For questions regarding submission and review, including appeals, you can reach the editorial office by email at admin(at)sjoranm.com

After your paper has been sent to production, you can contact for questions regarding the production process or publication. Please see the section if you need to request a substantive correction to your published paper.