About Breast Cancer Research

Scope

Breast Cancer Research - an online journal

Content overview

Archived content

Supplements

Peer review policy

Publishing policy

Scope

Breast Cancer Research - an online journal

Content overview

Archived content

Supplements

Peer review policy

Publishing policy

Scope

Breast Cancer Research - an online journal

Content overview

Archived content

Supplements

Peer review policy

Publishing policy

Scope

Breast Cancer Research - an online journal

Content overview

Archived content

Supplements

Peer review policy

Publishing policy

Scope

Breast Cancer Research is an international, peer-reviewed online journal, publishing original research, reviews, commentaries and reports. Research articles of exceptional interest are published in all areas of biology and medicine relevant to breast cancer, including normal mammary gland biology, with special emphasis on the genetic, biochemical, and cellular basis of breast cancer. In addition, the journal publishes clinical studies with a biological basis, including Phase I and Phase II trials.

Lewis Chodosh is Breast Cancer Research's Editor-in-Chief, and is supported by a team of Deputy Editors - Hans-Olov Adami, Jenny Chang, Stephen RD Johnston and Sunil Lakhani. An international Editorial Board represent the full range of subjects covered in the journal.

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Breast Cancer Research - an online journal

All articles in Breast Cancer Research are published in full online shortly after acceptance. Articles are published in PDF format suitable for printing, and a full text xml version that allows readers to:

• Link to the abstracts of articles from the reference list
• Download the reference list
• Search PubMed for other articles published by the authors
• Email the article to a friend
• Post a comment expressing their opinions on the article
• Find citations to the article via Google Scholar and ISI Web of Science

Online publication allows authors to include additional files such as films or large datasets. In addition to the journal content, the website provides several other facilities for readers:

• Email updates - register to receive regular updates and tables of contents of the latest articles published in Breast Cancer Research
• Search - search for articles in Breast Cancer Research, other journals published by BioMed Central, or the whole of PubMed.
• Search alerts - store searches and choose to receive new results by email
• Top 20 most accessed articles - keep up to date with what everyone else is reading
• RSS feed - have new articles delivered to your news headline reader

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Translations

The open access journal Archivos de Medicina offers authors whose papers have been accepted for publication in Breast Cancer Research the option of publishing a Spanish translation of their article. Further details can be found here.

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Content overview

Breast Cancer Research contains the following types of articles:

• Editorials
• Commentaries
• Reviews
• Research articles
• Viewpoints
• Meeting Reports
• Letters
• Archived content
• Supplements

See below for a brief description of each.

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Editorials
Editorials either describe policy issues directly relevant to Breast Cancer Research or highlight other articles published in the journal.

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Commentaries
These are short, opinionated, narrowly focused articles of contemporary interest. Most are commissioned, although unsolicited commentaries are welcome and are routinely peer reviewed. There are several types of commentary in Breast Cancer Research:

• General commentaries raise a topic currently under discussion, expanding on the underlying issues and suggesting what should happen next.
• Translational research updates comment on the most important new papers in a field of translational research.
• Clinical trial updates are written by representatives of worldwide breast cancer clinical trial groups, and give an up-to-date account of that group's most important current trials.
• Research-related commentaries focus on interesting research articles recently published in Breast Cancer Research, explaining the implications of the article and putting it in context.

See the instructions for authors for more information.

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Reviews
Reviews provide a full and factual account of recent developments within an area of research. Most are commissioned, although unsolicited reviews are welcome and are routinely peer reviewed. Additional material (supplementary data, more references, diagrams, videos, etc) is welcomed for the online version. Breast Cancer Research publishes two types of reviews:

• In-depth reviews provide substantial coverage of a subject in a single, longer article (usually 4000 words and 50 references) written by one author, with or without co-authors.
• Multi-author thematic reviews explore a subject in a series of concise, narrowly focused review articles (usually 2000 words and 25 references). Each series is coordinated by a leading authority in the field and the articles are written by specialists on each topic.

See the instructions for authors for more information.

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Research
Breast Cancer Research invites research articles of exceptional interest in all areas of biology and medicine relevant to breast cancer. Articles explore the biological basis of breast cancer and the clinical application of this knowledge. Clinical studies will usually be phase I and II clinical trials.

To ensure the best possible service to authors and readers, we offer:

• a very fast publication schedule whilst maintaining rigorous peer-review
• continuous publication - articles are published online, with a full citation, as soon as they are ready for publication

Research articles in Breast Cancer Research are open access, which means they are universally and freely accessible via the Internet and deposited in at least one widely and internationally recognized open access repository (such as PubMed Central). Authors retain copyright to their articles, and grant any third party the right to use, reproduce and disseminate the article, subject to the terms of the copyright license. To cover the costs incurred by open access publishing we levy an article processing charge for each accepted article. Please click here for more information.

See the instructions for authors for more information.

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Viewpoints
Viewpoints are short opinion pieces focusing on the latest high-impact research in the breast cancer field. Each is written by a member of our dedicated Viewpoints team.

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Meeting reports
These discuss recent conferences from the author's point of view; they are not meant to be comprehensive. Only selected conferences will be covered. The reports aim to provide readers of the journal with an efficient updating service, focusing on new data from biological and translational research. If you would like to report on a meeting, please contact the Editorial Office.

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Letters
Letters commenting on any article published in the journal are welcome. On occasion we may also invite a reply. We prefer letters to be less than 400 words and contain 5 or fewer references (the first of which should be the Breast Cancer Research article the letter refers to). Authors should also provide their current appointment and full address (including phone, fax, and email). All letters are edited; authors are sent the edited version to approve before publication.

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Archived material

• Non peer reviewed research - Breast Cancer Research's depository for non-peer-reviewed research (preprints) was closed in March 2002. Manuscripts will, therefore, no longer be accepted for this section of the journal but a complete archive of already published material is available online and free to access without a subscription.
• Book reports are now archival and provide a brief summary of a new book's strengths and weaknesses, written in a less formal style and expanding on wider issues. If you would like to suggest a new book to report on, please contact the Editorial Office.
• Paper reports and web reports are now archival only and cover, respectively, interesting articles published in other journals and items appearing on the web. Each report consists of a brief description of the contents together with a short comment on its significance. Full paper reports have now been replaced by Viewpoints.

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Supplements

Publishing a supplement to Breast Cancer Research is an excellent way to disseminate conference material and scientific findings to a specialist audience. Breast Cancer Research accepts the following types of supplement: Proceedings, Review collections, and Meeting abstracts. All published supplements are fully searchable and freely accessible online and can also be produced in print. Articles published in Proceedings and Review collections are indexed by PubMed. Meeting abstracts are also included in PubMed, displayed by the title of the supplement. However, PubMed does not index individual abstracts.

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Peer review policy

All articles will be subject to immediate screening by the Editorial Board. Articles that do not meet the scientific standards of the journal may be declined without further review. Appropriate articles will be sent to up to 3 referees who have agreed to assess the article rapidly. We will make every effort to reach decisions within 6 weeks of submission. If the referees have requested revisions, in general, only one revised version will be considered for further peer-review.

Authors are asked to provide names and contact details for 2-4 referees. However, final selection of referees is the responsibility of the Editorial Board.

All peer review is closed - authors are not given the names of the referees of their article.

Editorial Board members and referees are asked to declare any competing interests they may have in reviewing a manuscript.

On occasion, authors of rejected articles will be offered the opportunity to submit their research article to one of the other journals published by BioMed Central. Where relevant, the referee reports will be passed on to the second journal, which may expedite the peer review process. Referee reports are not passed on to any journal outside of BioMed Central.

If an author is not satisfied with the decision made on their manuscript, they are welcome to contact the Editorial Office with their appeal. A second opinion on the manuscript will be sought where appropriate.

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Publishing policies

Submission of an article to Breast Cancer Research implies that all contributors have read it and agree to its content. Material submitted to Breast Cancer Research must not have been simultaneously submitted for publication elsewhere.

Once an article is accepted, it is published in Breast Cancer Research immediately as a provisional PDF file, with a final citation, and will be included in PubMed. The article will subsequently be copyedited and published in both a fully browseable web form and as a formatted PDF; the article will then be available through Breast Cancer Research, BioMed Central and PubMed Central. Research articles are open access, and commentaries, reviews and reports are available via subscription. All articles become free to access online six months after publication. Letters and editorials are free to access immediately on publication.

With the exception of primary research articles, where the copyright rests with the authors as a default, copyright of material published in Breast Cancer Research belongs to the publisher, BioMed Central Ltd.

Breast Cancer Research offers a high quality reprint service. For more information see our publisher's reprints and permissions policy or contact us.

By being part of BioMed Central, Breast Cancer Research is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). For more information on COPE, see www.publicationethics.org.uk.

Discontinuation of Breast Cancer Research print issues
From January 2006 Breast Cancer Research will not be available in print and will only be published online. To subscribe or renew your subscription as an online only customer, use our order form. For more information contact our customer support team at info@breast-cancer-research.com.

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