All manuscripts should conform to the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals, as reported at http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf.
Manuscripts should be written in English. Contributors who are not native English speakers are strongly advised to ensure that a colleague fluent in the English language or a professional language editor has reviewed their manuscript. Concise English without jargon should be used. Repetitive use of long sentences and passive voice should be avoided. It is strongly recommended that the text be run through computer spelling and grammar programs. Either British or American spelling is acceptable but must be consistent throughout.
The Current Thoracic Surgery is published three times a year.
The article processing charge (APC) is 0.00 USD/TL. No submission fees, no publication fees.
Authors should certify that neither the manuscript nor its main contents have already been published or submitted for publication in another journal. This includes symposia, transactions, books, articles published by invitation, posting in electronic format and preliminary publications of any kind except an abstract of 400 words or fewer.
Manuscripts may be rejected without peer review by the Editor-in-Chief if they do not comply with the instructions to authors or if they are beyond the scope of the journal. Two or more reviewers (including international peer reviewers) are assigned for each article, and acceptance is based on significance, originality, and validity of the presented material.
Due to the Current Thoracic Surgery journal’s double-blinded review principles, the names of the authors and reviewers are not known to the other. If the article is accepted for publication, editorial revisions may be made to aid clarity and understanding without altering the meaning. After a manuscript has been accepted for publication, i.e. after referee-recommended revisions are complete, the author will not be permitted to make changes that constitute departures from the manuscript that was accepted by the editor.
Before publication, the galley proofs are sent to the authors for corrections. Mistakes or omissions that occur due to some negligence on our part during final printing will be rectified in an errata section in a later issue. This does not include those errors left uncorrected by the author in the galley proof.
The editorial and peer-review process follows the steps outlined below:
The publisher has no involvement in editorial decisions, peer review outcomes, or manuscript acceptance. All decisions are made exclusively by the Editor-in-Chief based on scientific quality, originality, methodological rigor, and ethical compliance.
The Current Thoracic Surgery provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supporting a greater global exchange of knowledge.
By “open access” to peer-reviewed research literature, we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users (readers, libraries, institutions and organisations) to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers.
Current Thoracic Surgery publishes all articles under the open access model, defined by Budapest, Berlin and Bethesda open access declarations. The full content of the articles is freely available for anyone without any charges or other restrictions.
All content of Current Thoracic Surgery is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Open access represents a truly unrestricted exchange of ideas and scientific knowledge.
Open access publishing benefits both authors and readers. Advantages include, free global access to all published articles, increased visibility, greater citation potential, and enhanced research impact, immediate access to peer-reviewed scientific literature, full citation status of published articles.
Copyright of all articles published in CTS remains with the authors. All papers are published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license, which allows free access, downloading, sharing, and reuse of the work, provided that proper citation of the original source is given. In special cases, alternative licensing may be applied if required by funding or institutional policies, upon approval by the publisher.
A signed Copyright and Licensing Form from the corresponding author (on behalf of all authors) must accompany the submission. After submission, changes to authorship order or author list are not permitted and may result in withdrawal of the manuscript.
Authors are responsible for ensuring that any third-party materials (figures, tables, images, or text) used in their work have the necessary permissions. Permission is required for previously published content, including adapted or modified materials, unless they are in the public domain or qualify under fair use. Proper acknowledgment of the original source must always be provided. No permission is required when authors reproduce or recreate their own previously published data, provided the source is clearly cited. Brief quotations and fully redrawn figures that are substantially modified also do not require permission.
To avoid delays, permissions should be obtained early in the submission process. Any required acknowledgments specified by copyright holders must be included in figure or table captions.
Authors are fully responsible for the ethical, scientific, and legal integrity of their work.
Studies involving humans must comply with the Declaration of Helsinki and receive approval from an appropriate institutional ethics committee. This approval must be blinded in the Methods section during review and stated fully on the Title Page. Written informed consent must be obtained from all participants, and authors should explicitly confirm this in the manuscript.
For animal studies, research must comply with international guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals (Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals). Ethical approval details (institution, date, and approval number) must also be provided in the Methods section, along with a statement confirming that animals were treated humanely.
Patient privacy must always be protected. Identifying information (such as names, initials, or hospital numbers) should not be included unless essential, and written informed consent for publication must be obtained in such cases. If patients can be recognized in images or descriptions, explicit permission is required. Authors should ensure that any anonymization does not distort scientific meaning.
Current Thoracic Surgery follows internationally recognized principles of publication ethics and research integrity. Authors, reviewers, and editors are expected to comply with the journal's Publication Ethics and Malpractice Policy. Detailed information regarding peer review is provided in the journal's Peer Review Policy.
Similarity screening is used as one component of the journal's assessment of potential plagiarism or redundant publication. A similarity score does not by itself determine whether plagiarism has occurred. Manuscripts identified as having potentially problematic overlap may be returned to the authors, rejected, or investigated in accordance with the journal's Publication Ethics and Malpractice Policy.
Authors, reviewers, and editors are required to disclose any financial, personal, academic or institutional relationships that could affect their judgement. Appropriate steps will be taken in case there is a conflict of interest to guarantee unbiased editorial processing of the manuscript.
Conflicts of interest are managed in accordance with the journal's Publication Ethics and Malpractice Policy and Peer Review Policy.
All funding sources must be disclosed, including governmental, institutional, commercial, or private support. The role of sponsors must be clearly stated. Lack of disclosure may be considered ethical misconduct.
Authors must clearly declare any use of generative AI tools during manuscript preparation, editing, or formatting. Undisclosed use detected at any stage may lead to rejection or retraction. GenAI tools may only be used to assist with language or formatting. All scientific ideas, data analysis, and conclusions must be fully developed and verified by the authors. AI use must not compromise accuracy, originality, or ethical standards. Authors remain fully responsible for the integrity and validity of the submitted work, regardless of any AI assistance.
Reviewers and editors are strictly prohibited from uploading submitted manuscripts or peer-review reports into generative AI platforms, as this violates manuscript confidentiality and proprietary rights.
CTS follows COPE guidelines when addressing post-publication issues related to the integrity of the scientific record. All published work is assumed to be based on honest reporting; however, if concerns arise, appropriate action is taken to ensure accuracy and transparency.
Corrections
If errors are identified in a published article that do not affect the overall scientific conclusions, a correction (erratum or corrigendum) may be issued. Since published articles may already have been read or cited, CTS ensures that corrections are clearly linked to the original article and made easily visible to readers. Minor inaccuracies are handled through corrigenda or errata, which include full citation details of the original publication. If an issue cannot be resolved through a standard correction, the Editor-in-Chief evaluates the case individually. Changes that arise from normal scientific progress and do not reflect errors in the published work do not require correction.
Retractions
Articles may be retracted in cases of serious ethical violations such as plagiarism, data fabrication, duplicate publication, false authorship claims, or other forms of misconduct. Retractions may also be issued when major errors invalidate the findings. A retraction notice titled “Retraction: [article title]” is published and linked to the original article. The original article remains accessible but is clearly marked as retracted to maintain the integrity of the scholarly record.
Article removal and replacement
In rare legal or ethical circumstances such as defamation, court orders, or serious health risks an article may be removed from online access. In such cases, bibliographic information is retained, but the content is replaced with a notice explaining the removal. If a corrected version is necessary due to safety concerns, the original article may be retracted and replaced with an updated version, with a clear record of the publication history maintained.
Expressions of concern
When serious doubts arise about the integrity of a published work and an investigation is ongoing, the Editor-in-Chief may issue an Expression of Concern. This serves to alert readers while the matter is being reviewed by the relevant institutions.
Withdrawal
Manuscripts may be withdrawn by authors before acceptance. After acceptance, withdrawal is only permitted under limited conditions, such as duplicate submission or ethical violations. Articles already published in an issue cannot be withdrawn but may instead be corrected or retracted depending on the situation.
Any allegation of potential research or publication misconduct should be reported to the Editor-in-Chief. Allegations will be assessed in accordance with the journal's Publication Ethics and Malpractice Policy and relevant COPE guidance. Where necessary, the journal may request explanations or supporting documentation from the authors, consult independent experts, or contact the relevant institution or other appropriate authority. The editorial process may be suspended while an investigation is ongoing. Manuscript withdrawal by the authors does not necessarily terminate an investigation into suspected misconduct. Where an allegation concerns the Editor-in-Chief, the matter will be handled in accordance with the editorial recusal procedures described in the Peer Review Policy.
Current Thoracic Surgery requires authors to provide a data-sharing statement for applicable clinical trials. According to ICMJE's data-sharing statement policy, authors are requested to submit a data-sharing statement in the case of randomized clinical trials. ICMJE policy on trial registration can be viewed at (http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf).
In accordance with ICMJE recommendations, randomized controlled trials are required to include a data-sharing statement indicating whether individual participant data will be shared. Where applicable, this statement must specify what data will be available, including de-identified participant data and data dictionaries, the timing and duration of data availability, whether additional related documents (such as the study protocol or statistical analysis plan) will be accessible, and the access criteria defining with whom the data will be shared and by what mechanism.
Authors performing secondary analysis using the shared data must confirm that they have used the data in accordance with the agreement (if any). It will be essential for authors to cite the source of the data using its unique persistent identifier to credit its creators and facilitate retrieval of the original datasets. At the same time, secondary data analysis authors should describe thoroughly in their articles how their studies differ from the earlier ones. Appropriate recognition should be given to researchers who created and shared clinical trial datasets. Researchers using shared data are encouraged to collaborate with the investigators who generated the data. However, since collaboration might not always be possible, recognition of data generators remains essential.
In addition, for applicable studies, a Data Availability Statement must be included in the manuscript at the time of submission. This statement should clearly indicate whether the underlying data supporting the findings are available, and if so, how they can be accessed, under what conditions, and with what restrictions, in accordance with ethical and regulatory requirements. For applicable studies, submissions without a Data Availability Statement will not proceed to peer review stage until this requirement is fulfilled.
The statistical procedures used in the analysis should be described clearly so that anyone with access to the original data can understand and reproduce the analysis. All definitions, abbreviations, symbols, statistical procedures, and computer programs used should be clearly identified.
When reporting data, means, and percentages must always be presented with two decimal places (e.g., 112.20 instead of 112.2). Conversely, test statistics and specific statistical values including p, t, z, F, and Chi-square values must be reported with exactly three decimal places. Exact p-values along with their corresponding test statistics should always be stated, except when the value is less than 0.01 or 0.001, in which case they should be reported as p < 0.01 or p < 0.001.
The Current Thoracic Surgery stipulates in its policy that all conflicts of interest relating to any financial relationship between the author(s) and other entity(s), whether as employees, direct remuneration, share holdings, retainership, consultancy, patents, and honoraria must be disclosed in the cover letter. All grants received in relation to the research must be cited in a footnote. Authors must also state that the manuscript has not been published previously and is not under consideration elsewhere. This includes symposia, proceedings, books, and invited articles, except for an abstract not exceeding 400 words.
Title page should include:
Authorship and CRediT Statement
Current Thoracic Surgery adheres to the ICMJE authorship guidelines and utilizes the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) to ensure complete transparency regarding each author’s contribution.
Important: To preserve the integrity of our double-blind peer review process, the CRediT statement must be included exclusively on the Title Page. Do NOT include author names, initials, or contribution statements in the blinded main manuscript. Upon acceptance, this information will be placed immediately before the References section in the final layout.
Contributions should be described using the recognized CRediT roles (Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal Analysis, Investigation, Resources, Data Curation, Writing – Original Draft, Writing – Review & Editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project Administration, Funding Acquisition).
Manuscripts should be double-spaced with 3-cm margins on all sides of the page, in Times New Roman font. Every page of the manuscript, including the title page, references, tables, etc., should be numbered. All copies of the manuscript should also have line numbers starting with 1 on each consecutive page.
The style guidelines generally used by this journal adhere to those of Scientific Style and Format, The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers, Council of Science Editors, Reston, VA, USA (9th ed.). Any use of special symbols like ×, μ, η, or ν is recommended to be done via the Symbols feature of Word. For degree symbols (°), these must be used via the Symbol menu; not superscripts of o or 0. Multiplication symbols must be used (×); not letter x. There must be spaces in numbers followed by units (3 kg) or numbers followed by mathematical symbols (+, -, ×, =, <, >). However, no spaces are required between numbers and percent (%) symbols (45%). Use SI units, please. All acronyms and abbreviations must be expanded upon first use. Latin terms like et al., in vitro, or in situ should not be in italics.
Current Thoracic Surgery accepts the following types of manuscripts:
|
Article Type |
Scope |
Manuscript Specifications |
|
Original Articles |
Randomized controlled trials, observational studies, experimental research, and clinical outcome studies. |
Word count: Maximum 3,500 words, excluding abstract, references, tables, and figure legends. Abstract: Structured (Background, Materials and Methods, Results, Conclusions), up to 250 words. References: Maximum 25. Tables/Figures: Maximum 6 combined. |
|
Review Articles |
Systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and comprehensive state-of-the-art overviews of critical thoracic surgical topics. |
Word count: Maximum 5,000 words. Abstract: Unstructured narrative overview, up to 250 words. References: Maximum 85. Tables/Figures: Maximum 6 combined. |
|
Case Reports |
Rare clinical presentations, novel surgical approaches, or unexpected procedural complications with high educational value. |
Word count: Maximum 1,500 words. Structure: Introduction, Case Report, Discussion. Abstract: Unstructured, up to 150 words. References: Preferably ≤ 15. Tables/Figures: Maximum 3 combined. |
|
Images in Thoracic Surgery |
High-quality surgical, radiologic, or histopathologic images depicting rare findings, unique intraoperative anatomical anomalies, or novel technical maneuvers. The text should focus directly on the clinical relevance of the images without an extensive literature review. |
Word count: Maximum 500 words. Abstract: Not required. References: Maximum 4. Figures: Up to 2 high-resolution multipanel figures meeting the journal's resolution criteria. |
|
Letters to the Editor |
Comments on recently published articles in CTS or concise academic observations. |
Word count: Maximum 1,000 words. Abstract: Not required. References: Maximum 5. Tables/Figures: Maximum 1 combined. |
While specific requirements vary by article type (as detailed above), Original Research Articles should typically follow the standard IMRAD structure and be organized into the following sequential sections:
The cover page is to include the title of your paper in sentence case, the complete names (the last name entirely in capital letters) and affiliations of all the authors (Department, Faculty, University, City, Country), and the correspondence address with the e-mail of the corresponding author.
An informative abstract of not more than 250 words must accompany each manuscript. The abstract must be structured to include the study’s background, materials and methods, results, and conclusions and key words under 5 separate headings. Abstracts of review articles should be a brief overview of the main points from the review.
Please provide at least 3 key words or phrases to enable retrieval and indexing. Acronyms should be avoided. Always try to use terms from the Medical Subjects Headings (MeSH) list from PubMed.
This should argue the case for your study, outlining only essential background, and should not include the findings or the conclusions. It should not be a review of the subject area, but should finish with a clear statement of the question being addressed.
Explain clearly but concisely your clinical, technical, or experimental procedures. Previously published papers related to the methods should be cited with appropriate references. Brand names and company locations should be supplied for all mentioned equipment, instruments, chemicals, etc.
Findings must be described without comment. The same data or information given in a Table must not be repeated in a Figure and vice versa. It is not acceptable to repeat extensively the numbers from Tables in the text or to give lengthy explanations of Tables or Figures.
Statements from the Introduction and Results sections should not be repeated here. The final paragraph should highlight the main conclusions of the study. Names of funding organizations should be written in full.
In the text, references should be identified using numbers in square brackets in which they appear consecutively. The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the official ISI Web of Science (WoS) Journal Abbreviations Index. Reference lists should be concise and appropriate to the article type. The Editor-in-Chief may allow additional references when scientifically justified and relevant to the manuscript. For articles with 1 to 6 authors, list all authors. For articles more than 6 authors, list the first 6 authors followed by “et al.”. Do not use individual sets of parentheses for citation numbers that appear together, e.g., [2,3,5-9], not [2],[3],[5]–[9]. Authors are solely responsible for the accuracy and completeness of references.
Özpolat B, Gürpınar ÖA, Ayva EŞ, Gazyağcı S, Miyaz M. The effect of Basic Fibroblast Growth Factor and adipose tissue derived mesenchymal stem cells on wound healing, epithelization and angiogenesis in a tracheal resection and end to end anastomosis rat model. Turk J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 2013; 21: 1010-9.
All illustrations (photographs, drawings, graphs, etc.), not including tables, must be labeled “Figure.” Figures must be submitted both in the manuscript and as separate files.
All tables and figures must have a caption and/or legend and be numbered (e.g., Table 1, Figure 2). Captions must be written in sentence case (e.g., Macroscopic appearance of the samples.). The font used in the figures should be Times New Roman. If symbols such as ×, μ, η, or ν are used, they should be added using the Symbols menu of Word.
All tables and figures must be numbered consecutively as they are referred to in the text. Please refer to tables and figures with capitalization and unabbreviated (e.g., “As shown in Figure 2…”, and not “Fig. 2” or “figure 2”). The tables and figures themselves should be given at the end of the text only, after the references, not in the running text.
The resolution of images should not be less than 118 pixels/cm when width is set to 16 cm. Images must be scanned at 1200 dpi resolution and submitted in jpeg or tiff format. Graphs and diagrams must be drawn with a line weight between 0.5 and 1 point.
Graphs and diagrams with a line weight of less than 0.5 point or more than 1 point are not accepted. Scanned or photocopied graphs and diagrams are not accepted.
Charts must be prepared in 2 dimensions unless required by the data used. Charts unnecessarily prepared in 3 dimensions are not accepted.
Figures that are charts, diagrams, or drawings must be submitted in a modifiable format, i.e. our graphics personnel should be able to modify them. Therefore, if the program with which the figure is drawn has a “save as” option, it must be saved as *.ai or *.pdf. If the “save as” option does not include these extensions, the figure must be copied and pasted into a blank Microsoft Word document as an editable object. It must not be pasted as an image file (tiff, jpeg, or eps) unless it is a photograph.
Tables and figures, including caption, title, column heads, and footnotes, must not exceed 16×20 cm and should be no smaller than 8 cm in width. For all tables, please use Word’s “Create Table” feature, with no tabbed text or tables created with spaces and drawn lines. Please do not duplicate information that is already presented in the figures.
Tables must be clearly typed, each on a separate sheet, and double-spaced. Tables may be continued on another sheet if necessary, but the dimensions stated above still apply.
Berkant Özpolat, MD.
Professor of Thoracic Surgery
Editor-in-Chief, Current Thoracic Surgery
Phone: +90 (538) 302 59 49
e-mail: cts@tgcd.org.tr
www.cts.tgcd.org.tr
