About the Journal

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The Annals of African Surgery (ISSN: 1999-9674 [print], 2523-0816 [online]) is a quarterly publication that aims to provide a medium for the exchange of current information between surgeons in the African region. The journal embraces surgery in all its aspects: basic science, clinical research, experimental research, and surgical education. The Annals of African Surgery helps surgeons in the region keep abreast of developing surgical innovations.

 

Types of articles published:
-Original articles
-Case reports
-Case series
-Reviews
-Short communications

-Editorial
-Letters to the editor
-Commentaries

-Video vignettes

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Scope
Annals of African Surgery publishes manuscripts in the following fields:
– Cardiac and thoracic surgery
– General surgery
– Neurosurgery
– Oral and maxillofacial surgery
– Trauma and orthopaedic surgery
– Otolaryngology (ear, nose and throat surgery)
– Paediatric surgery
– Plastic and reconstructive surgery
– Urology surgery
– Gynaecologic surgery
– Surgical education
– Medical education
– Global surgery
– Health advocacy
– Innovations in surgery
– Basic sciences
– Anatomical sciences
– Genetic and molecular studies

– Ophthalmology 

– Anesthesiology

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Reporting
While there are several ways of reporting research findings, we encourage all authors to review guidelines including the ones by the EQUATOR network prior to submission of manuscripts. There are also several resources available to authors as they prepare their work. Please visit Author Aid which is an excellent source of resources for authors.

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Checklists

Kindly ensure before you submit your article for submission you cross-check that your particular study fulfills the requirement of your study design and upload the filled in checklist as a file for review.

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Randomised trials:  CONSORT 

Observational studies:  STROBE 

• Combined

• Cohort

• Case-control

• Cross-sectional

Systematic reviews:  PRISMA 

Study protocols:  SPIRIT 

Diagnostic/prognostic studies: STARD 

Case reports:  CARE 

Clinical practice guidelines: AGREE 

Qualitative research: SRQR 

Animal pre-clinical studies: ARRIVE

Quality improvement studies: SQUIRE 

Economic evaluations:  CHEERS

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Clinical registries 

The clinical trial registries that are national, regional, or international in scope are listed in the link below, along with relevant laws and guidance documents.

https://www.annalsofafricansurgery.com/clinical-registries

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Language

Submissions from authors whose first language is not English should be subjected to language editing, either by an individual/co-author whose first language is English, or professional language editors. For more information on the latter, please visit the Wiley language editing website

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Study Design and Ethics
In the preparation of a manuscript, authors should, in general, follow the recommendations in Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors.

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All studies should be carried out in accordance with the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki.

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Patient consent must be obtained for all human studies, and that must be stated in the manuscript. If such consent has not been obtained, a letter of explanation must be included with the submission. The authors are responsible for obtaining and retaining the documentation of such permission, which should not be forwarded to the Annals of African Surgery offices in order to protect the privacy of the patients. Patient confidentiality must be protected in accordance with the relevant legal provision of the country of study.

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All studies submitted for publication must include a letter indicating IRB approval or approval by a similar ethics board, and such approval must be noted in the manuscript. Further, informed consent files should also be submitted or a waiver form from the respective IRB for the same. If such approval and consent files are not included, a full explanation must be provided to the Editor in Chief, who may investigate further.

All clinical trials submitted for consideration (i.e., any clinical study in which patients are randomized into two treatment groups OR are followed prospectively to compare two different treatments) must have been registered in a public trials registry such as www.clinicaltrials.gov. Trials should be registered at the start of the research.

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All manuscripts dealing with experimental results in animals must include a statement that the study has been approved by an animal utilization study committee. The Editor-in-Chief may further investigate that statement.

Information about the management of postoperative pain for both animal and human subjects must be included.

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Authorship
The Annals of African Surgery considers all authors to be equally responsible for the entire manuscript. All authors must sign a document indicating that they have read and approved the contents of the manuscript. Each author must have contributed significantly to, and be willing to take public responsibility for, one or more aspects of the study: its design, data acquisition and analysis, and interpretation of data. All authors must have been actively involved in the drafting and critical revision of the manuscript and each must provide final approval of the version to be published. All authors are held equally responsible for ensuring that documentation is correct and accurate, and that the required permissions have been obtained. No author may disclaim any part of the manuscript.

Authors should register with the ORCID which provides unique identifiers for each author. During article submission, the corresponding authors are required to link their ORCID ID and provide the ORCID IDs of all the co-authors by typing them in the title page. We also encourage registration with PUBLONS which helps authors and reviewers track their metrics.

Any change in authorship (including the order of names and the designation of the corresponding author) after the initial review process will necessitate a signed letter from all agreeing to the change.

Individuals who have contributed to only one section of the manuscript or have contributed only cases should be credited in an acknowledgement footnote.

 

Originality, Prior Publication, and Reproduction of Images
Articles are accepted only for exclusive publication. Previously published articles, including those published in non-English journals, are not eligible for publication.

All manuscripts that pass the initial review process are screened for plagiarism, which is a ground for immediate rejection.
Redundant publication/submission and duplicate publication/submission deplete the resources of our reviewers and editors. If an author is in doubt as to whether a manuscript might be considered redundant, that author should contact the journal’s editor in advance to discuss the issue.

Images may not be enhanced or altered without clear and explicit disclosure in the legend. Any digital manipulation of an image—color, contrast, brightness, etc.—must be applied to the entire image and may not result in misrepresentation of the original image.

 

Mandatory submission prerequisites

Before beginning submission, ensure you adhere to the following requirements:

• The manuscript has to be written in English with acceptable the grammar and flow. If you are not a native English speaker, please use a language editing service.

• The manuscript should be within the word limit i.e., 4000 words for original articles and 2500 for case reports. The abstract should be STRUCTURED (other than for case reports). With a word count less than 200.

•  Required fields in the scholar one system.

• ORCID ID of corresponding author should be linked.

• The keywords and summary for social media should be appropriate for the paper.

• Names and email addresses of two proposed reviewers for your manuscript

• Important attachments

1. Title Page- Separate document with title, full names of authors (no abbreviations), affiliation and ORCID of ALL authors; email address of the corresponding author.

2. Main text- Blinded with no indication of author names, institution, city or country. If considered vital these can be replaced with our hospital, our country etc. and the real names added after the peer review process.

3. Should include a structured abstract (or unstructured summary for case reports), 

4. Keywords- 3-6 words that highlight the key message in the article. These are used to create an online link to the article for simple searching.

5. Introduction, 

6. Methods: The ethical approval number MUST be cited intext. For RCTs the trial registration details (e.g., number and databases/register) should be provided. For case reports please indicate if consent was obtained from patient or guardian (if a minor)

7. Results, 

8. Discussion, 

9. Conclusion and 

10. References; 

    1. Appropriate number 40 for reviews, 25 for original papers, 10 for case reports 

    2. In-text references: numbers enclosed in parentheses ( )

    3. Numbered in order of citation, i.e., 7 is cited before 8 

    4. Bibliography: formatted as per Vancouver, maximum of 3 authors per reference, add word “et al” after third author. 

    5. <50% older than 10 years 

    6. No Dates or months or DOIs & PMIDs

    7. All retrievable on the internet.

11. Tables- should be made using the word processing document and not copy pasted from the statistical software. Should have well described titles and appropriately cited intext. Tables should be placed after the references. 

12. Figures & Images- Uploaded as separate individual files AND embedded in the word document. These should have the following characteristics:

    1. Acceptable quality (at least 300 dpi) and format (TIFF or PNG or JPEG, at least 300dpi)

    2. Clear   

    3. Well highlighted pathology or procedure

    4. Blinded to patient and institution.

    5. Well labelled and cited in the text of the manuscript.

13. Copyright agreement form - Initialed on EACH PAGE and last page signed by ALL authors (This form can be downloaded here).

14. Conflict of interest form - One form for EACH author. (This form can be downloaded here).

15. The Informed Consent form for case reports only (IC) (This form can be downloaded here). 

16. Approved ethical approval form.

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Video Vignettes

Short videos (video vignettes) highlighting techniques procedures or unique cases within the scope of the journal may be submitted. These may be previously unpublished material or from previously published manuscripts.

Please adhere to the following guidelines when submitting your video vignettes: 

1. After submission of all manuscript files (main manuscript with details on the video vignette and its utility, title page, abstract, images, copyright agreement forms, conflict of interest forms, etc.) on our ScholarOne website, a manuscript number will be generated e.g., aas-2021-XXXX. The manuscript number should then be used to name the video file that should be sent to our Gmail address: annalsafricansurgery@gmail.com as an attachment or google drive link. This will be reviewed, vetted and finally uploaded on our official YouTube channel.

2. The videos should be in English.

3. The duration of the videos should be 5-10 minutes and the speaker should speak at an average speed.

4. The recommended dimensions are as follows:  854 x 480 (480p), 1280 x 720 (720p), 1920 x 1080 (1080p), 2560 x 1440 (1440p) and 3840 x 2160 (2160p).

5. Accepted video formats include: .MOV, .MPEG4, MP4, .AVI, .WMV, MPEGPS, .FLV, 3GPP, and WebM.

6. Aspect ratio is 16:9 (auto adds pillar boxing if 4:3).

7. The videos should be recorded in a well-lit room that is quiet and free of background noises.

8. Branded, promotional or commercial content should not be captured in the videos as they should be purely educational.

9. No patient identifiers should be visible and written informed consent for the videos should be sought and submitted with the videos.

10. Techniques that are routine or don’t vary from surgeon to surgeon should be speeded up.

To ensure that the videos are of great quality, we recommend the use of the following equipment in the suggested ways: 

• Video Camera(s) that one can use – HD, Hi8, 8MM & Flip Cameras

• iPads and Tablets – iPad/Air, Amazon Kindle Fire HDX, MS Surface, Samsung Galaxy Tab, etc.

• Smartphones – iPhone, Samsung Galaxy, Google Nexus, etc. 

• Enhance mobile video by shooting horizontally. DO NOT SHOOT VERTICALLY!

• Where available, a tripod should be used.

• Quality is key! Choose the device that has the best quality video and audio recording available.

To enhance the quality of the audio bit of the submission, authors are advised to use external microphones.

 

The videos may be edited prior to submission and we recommend the following applications for editing: 

• Adobe Premiere Pro. The best video editing software overall. 

• CyberLinkPowerDirector 365. Consumer-level video editing software that's rich with features. 

• Adobe Premiere Elements. 

• Pinnacle Studio. 

• Final Cut Pro X.

• Adobe Premiere Rush.

• Corel VideoStudio Ultimate.

• Filmora.

• iMovie 

• Windows MovieMaker

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Submission Prefills 

The submission prefills is a software that allows one to upload a manuscript to the system from whence it extracts the constituents of a paper (title, abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results and discussion).  In order to successfully use this system, ensure you have all the documents that are outlined in the guide for authors section ready, i.e., title page, main text, images, copyright agreement form and conflict of interest form. Once this is done, upload the main manuscript document in pdf format, allowing it to be saved. Thereafter, select the type of manuscript e.g., original research- clinical, care report, editorial etc., and the preceding boxes will automatically be prefilled with the components of the paper. In instances where some components are missing, the system automatically reverts the submission until all the requirements are fulfilled. For more information on how this system works, kindly access a demonstrational video here.

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Age of Data

The age of data is a consideration when making editorial decisions. Manuscripts whose most recent data was collected more than five years ago will generally tend to receive lower priority for publication. Authors of such manuscripts are required to provide a detailed explanation on the relevance of the information in their study with respect to current knowledge and medical practice as well as the most recent date(s) when the data was analyzed. When submitting to the Annals of African Surgery, consider the following concerning the data intended for publication: 

1. The final follow-up date for cohort studies should be as recent as possible and preferably not more than 5 years old from the date of submission

2. Data in case-control or cross-sectional studies should have been collected as recently as possible and preferably not more than 5 years prior to the date of submission.

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Conflict of Interest
All editors at the Annals of African Surgery have disclosed any conflicts of interest to the Editor-in-Chief, who has resolved those as necessary to ensure that an editor conflict of interest does not impact the review of any manuscript submission. Authors are required to reveal any conflicts of interest when they submit the manuscript, using the form published by the International Council of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). The form is available through the manuscript submission website and must be filled by each author. The information contained in the disclosure statement has no bearing on the editorial decision to publish a manuscript. A summary of the statements selected by the author or authors will be printed with the published article and each author’s completed ICJME disclosure statement is available online.

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Sources of funding must be disclosed in the manuscript text.

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Reviewers, assistant editors, and/or associate editors may have a conflict of interest or a competing interest with regard to the subject matter of a manuscript. Such conflicts are disclosed to the handling editor and/or the Editor-in-Chief as early in the review process as possible. If warranted, a different reviewer will be asked to evaluate the manuscript or the paper will be reassigned to another editor. The Editor-in-Chief has no known conflicts of interest or competing interests and makes the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of all manuscripts submitted.

When one of the editors submits a paper to the journal, the online system automatically excludes him/her from processing the paper. In addition, said editor is excused from the portion of the meeting where the particular paper is discussed.

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Misconduct
The Annals of African Surgery takes seriously all allegations of potential misconduct and will follow the COPE guidelines outlining how to deal with cases of suspected misconduct.

In cases of suspected research or publication misconduct, it may be necessary for the Editor to contact and share manuscripts with third parties, for example, author(s)’ institution(s) and ethics committee(s).

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Research misconduct
All research involving humans (including human data and human material) and animals must have been carried out within an appropriate ethical framework. If there is suspicion that research has not taken place within an appropriate ethical framework, the Editor may reject a manuscript and may inform third parties, for example, author(s)’ institution(s) and ethics committee(s).

In cases of proven research misconduct involving published articles, or where the scientific integrity of the article is significantly undermined, articles may be retracted.

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Publication misconduct
The Annals of African Surgery will follow the COPE guidelines outlining how to deal with cases of suspected misconduct.

 

Image manipulation
We endorse the guidelines given in the Submission Guidelines for Authors of the Journal of Cell Biology, from where the following is adapted:

• All digital images in manuscripts considered for publication will be scrutinized for any indication of manipulation that is inconsistent with the following guidelines. Manipulation that violates these guidelines may result in delays in manuscript processing or rejection, or retraction of a published article.

• No specific feature within an image may be enhanced, obscured, moved, removed, or introduced.

• The grouping of images from different parts of the same gel, or from different gels, fields, or exposures, must be made explicit by the arrangement of the figure (i.e. using dividing lines) and in the text of the figure legend.

• Adjustments of brightness, contrast, or color balance are acceptable if they are applied to every pixel in the image and as long as they do not obscure, eliminate, or misrepresent any information present in the original, including the background. Non-linear adjustments (e.g. changes to gamma settings) must be disclosed in the figure legend.

• Any questions raised during or after the peer review process will be referred to the Editor, who will request the original data from the author(s) for comparison with the prepared figures. If the original data cannot be produced, the manuscript may be rejected or, in the case of a published article, retracted. Any case in which the manipulation affects the interpretation of the data will result in rejection or retraction. Cases of suspected misconduct will be reported to the author(s)’ institution(s).

 

Plagiarism
A detailed review of all manuscripts is taken on submission to check for plagiarism. If plagiarism is identified, the COPE guidelines on plagiarism will be followed. The Annals of African Surgery are also actively looking into acquiring anti-plagiarism software.

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Peer Review and Editorial Decisions
Scientific articles and all other manuscripts submitted to The Annals of African Surgery are first reviewed by our assistant editors and associate editor. Some manuscripts are rejected after such initial review, however, the majority of articles are sent to two or more reviewers for double-blinded peer review. At no time are the identities of authors or reviewers disclosed to one another.

Although very few rejection notices are overturned, authors can appeal an editorial decision by sending an email to the Editor in Chief. The choice to uphold the initial decision, offer a chance at revision, or discuss the paper at an editorial workshop is up to the Editor-in-Chief’s discretion.

The review process and the manuscripts under review are kept confidential by the editors and reviewers throughout the whole process.