(Revised in January 2011)

 
The Korean Journal of Laboratory Medicine (Korean J Lab Med; KJLM) is the official journal of The Korean Society for Laboratory Medicine (KSLM), published trimonthly (at the 1st of January, April, July, and October) in English. The journal publishes Original Articles, Case Reports, Brief Communications, Letters to the Editor, and Review Articles about new and important subjects in laboratory medicine that are related to the etiology, diagnosis, and treatment of diseases and are scientific, original, ethical, and academically significant.


GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

1. The manuscripts should be written in English. The journal publishes Original Articles, Case Reports, Brief Communications, and Letters to the Editor, as well as Review Articles requested by the editorial board. Case Reports are limited to those conditions for which there are no more than 3 such reports from Korea or elsewhere in the world. Brief Communications are intended for the presentation of brief observations that do not warrant fulllength papers, but have sufficient originality and utility to be considered for publication. The information must be presented in sufficient detail so that readers can understand and appreciate the material presented. Brief communications undergo the same review process as full-length papers and are not published sooner than the full-length papers. Original Articles and Case Reports are classified according to the following 8 specific areas, and the author should state the appropriate area of interest in their manuscripts. However, the executive editor of each field may request to the author to change the area of interest and resubmit the manuscript, if necessary.

Specific areas include:

  • Diagnostic Hematology
  • Clinical Chemistry
  • Clinical Microbiology
  • Diagnostic Immunology
  • Transfusion Medicine
  • Diagnostic Genetics
  • Laboratory Informatics
  • General Laboratory Medicine

2. Ethical considerations: Experiments conducted on human subjects should be performed according to the Declaration of Helsinki (adopted in 1964 and amended in 2004, www.wma.net/e/policy/b3.htm) and approved by the Research Ethics Committee or the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the institution where the experiment was performed. Written informed consent should be obtained from all subjects, when necessary. In the case of an animal study, it should be mentioned that the experimental processes such as breeding and the use of laboratory animals were approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the institution where the experiment was performed or that these processes complied with the rules of the Research Ethics Committee of the institution or National Institutes for Health (NIH) Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (1996, Institute of Laboratory Animal Resources (ILAR) Committee on National Research Council (NRC), National Academic Press pp125, www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/labrats/index.html). The authors should retain the raw data of the experiment and study for at least a year after the publication of the paper and should present these data if required by the editorial board.

3. Authorship: The manuscripts are accepted only on the understanding that they have not been published elsewhere. The manuscripts published in this journal cannot be submitted for publication elsewhere. If the author(s) wishes a duplicate or a secondary publication, for example, for the readers of a different language, the author must obtain approval from the editors-in-chief of both the first and second journals. Further, the conditions specified in the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals http://www.icmje.org (updated October 2008) should be met, such as insertion of a comment as a footnote in the title page of the second journal stating the primary reference and the duplicate nature of the paper.

4. Only those who have made significant contributions to the preparation and publication of the manuscript are eligible for authorship and should take responsibility for the same. Each author should sign the Authorship Responsibility and Copyright Transfer Agreement Form attesting that he or she fulfils the authorship criteria. Authors are required to identify their contributions to the work described in the manuscript.

5. Disclosure of conflict of interest: A financial grant or support and all other monetary relationships, including consultation fees, stocks, etc. should be disclosed just before the acknowledgement section. Each author should sign a statement disclosing any conflict of interest.


 


PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPTS

1. The manuscript must be typewritten double-spaced using a 12-point font size on A4-sized paper using Microsoft (MS) Word. The number of pages should be less than 21 excluding tables and figures. Case Report should be less than 16 pages and Letter to the Editor should be less than 11 pages. Brief Communications should be no more than 1,500 words in total. Section headings should not be used in the body of the Brief Communications, and the methods, results, and discussion should be combined in a single section. Materials and methods should be described in the text, neither in the table footnotes, nor in the figure legends in the case of Brief Communications. Acknowledgments should be presented similar to that in full-length papers. The number of tables and figures should also be kept to a minimum in the case of Brief Communications.

2. Manuscripts should include the following in the given order:

1) Cover Letter: Two files, either ‘author(s)’ information’ and‘cover letter’ file should be uploaded. The cover letter file shold contain a brief description of the novelty and importance of the work. In author(s)’ information file, describe the specific area, title, institutional affiliation(s), and name of the author(s), the corresponding author’s information (complete address, telephone and facsimile numbers, and e-mail address) in English. If the authors are affiliated to different institutions, their names and affiliations should be stated the superscripts 1, 2, 3, etc starting from the first author. Only the highest degree or title should be mentioned after the name, such as M.D., Ph.D., M.S., M.T., etc. We permit only 1 additional co-first-author and/or one co-corresponding-author, if necessary. A running title should be added if the title exceeds 40 characters in English, including spaces. A research grant or other conflict of interest should be disclosed in the footnote.
2) Title page :The title page should be prepared after the cover letter, the specific area, and title are identified. Add a running title if needed. Do not disclose the institutional affiliation and names of the authors to the reviewer. For an MS Word file being submitted to a reviewer, go to “Tools”→"Options”→“Security”→“Personal Security Option”, and select the “do not include the personal information” and save the file without personal details so that the reviewer cannot identify the author.
3) Abstract:Abstract is not required in the case of Letter to the Editor. In case of all the other types of manuscripts, the abstract should be written in English, in 250 words or less, and include the subheadings Background, Methods, Results, and Conclusions. Each subheading should be summarized in 1 paragraph. Select 3 to 10 key words in English and insert them below the abstract. For Case Reports and Brief Communications, the abstract is limited to 250 words in a single paragraph without the subheadings. The key words are to be selected according to the Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) of Index Medicus (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/MBrowser. html). When a reagent or instrument is described in the abstract, the author should only mention the name, company, and country, and not the manufacturing city.
4) Introduction: Research hypothesis and specific aim should be described briefly.
5) Materials and Methods: Statistical methods should be described, if any.
6) Results
* 5) and 6) can be combined in Case Reports.
7) Discussion: The content in either the introduction or the results should not be repeated.
8) Acknowledgements: General acknowledgements and all necessary conflicts of interest should be disclosed.
9) References: Serially number the references in the order of citation in the text with numbers in brackets. Refer only to the most pertinent literature and indicate 40 references at the most. Not more than 30 references should be inserted for Brief Communications, 20 for Letter to the Editor.
10) Tables and Figures: Each table and figure should be written concisely and the content of the tables and figures should not overlap. Photographs should be clear. Submit colored and black and white photographs to print colored and black and white photographs, respectively. Files containing the figures can be uploaded via the online manuscript submission system in Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) or Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) file formats. Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) or bitmap (BMP) files can be uploaded for the accepted manuscript. The print resolution should be 300 dots per inch (dpi) or more. If the figure is delivered by mail, the photographs should have a separate label on the reverse side, indicating the figure numbers, name of the author, an arrow indicating the top, and whether it should be printed in color or not. Some figures should be printed in color only by the request of editor. For the citation of the contents of tables or figures, indicate them with Table 1 or Fig. 1. If there are more than 1 insets in the figure, each one of them should be identified alphabetically i.e. (A), (B), (C), etc. with a corresponding legend. The appropriate location of tables and figures should be marked with <Insert Table 1>, <Insert Figure 1>, etc. using the “Memo” function in MS Word.
11) Page numbers: Insert the page number in series at the bottom of each page starting with the cover letter.

3. Observe the following points when preparing the contents of a manuscript.

1) We recommend to use the appropriate English terminology translated from Korean using either Essential Medical Terminology published by The Korean Medical Association in 2005 or “The Collection of Medical Terms, 4th edition, published by The Korean Medical Association in 2001 (http://kamje.or.kr/term) or Laboratoy medicine terminology in 2010 by the Korean Society for Laboratory Medicine.
2) The name of a person or a place and other proper nouns should be used in the original language and Arabic numerals should be used. Weights and measures should be represented in the metric system and the units should be in the International Standard Unit (SI unit). Indicate liters with a capital L.

3) The name of a microorganism should be spelled out the first mention in the abstract, and original text. The names of the genus can be abbreviated subsequently (example: E. coli). However, do not abbreviate the name of the genus if 2 or more genera starting with the same letter are being referred to. Scientific names should always be italicized.

[Example 1] To be italicized: Escherichia. coli, Papovaviridae, Hepadnavirus, and Simplex virus
[Example 2] Not be italicized: streptococci, coagulase negative staphylococci, Epstein-Barr virus, hepatitis B virus, and herpes simplex virus
4) The names of the genes, and not the proteins should be italicized: BCR-ABL mutations, HER2 gene, BCR-ABL kinase domain, HER2-positive.

5) When using English abbreviations, define the abbreviation completely at first mention in the English abstract, original text, and Korean summary. Do not use an abbreviation in the title. The terms listed at the end of the KSLM journal or its website need not be defined.

6) In the case of spacing between words and parentheses or brackets, a space should be inserted when English text or a number is placed before the parentheses and no space is required when a Korean text is placed before it.

[Example 1] Heparin-induced thrombocytopenia/thrombosis (HITT)

7) For an instrument or equipment, mention the name of its model; manufacturer; and city, (state), and country of an instrument or equipment in parentheses. The general name of a reagent should be used. If a trade name is expressed with a general name, it should be placed after it in parentheses. When using a trade name, indicate the manufacturer, city, state, and country in parentheses. Do not use the symbols TM or ® unless necessary. At subsequent mentions after the first, instruments and equipments can be referred to indicating only the manufacturer in parentheses. [Example] Coulter STKS (Coulter Electronics Inc., Hialeah, FL., USA), vancomycin (Sigma Chemical Company, St. Louis, MO, USA)
8) P should be uppercase and italicized to indicate statistical significance.

9) In the case of numbers greater than 3 digits, a comma should be inserted after every third digit from right to left (e.g., 5,431, 5,675, and 1,000), but a comma should not be inserted when indicating years (e.g., 1995, 2007).

4. References should be presented in the following style.

1) In the case of articles, mention the names of the authors, title, name of the journal, year published, volume number, and the first and last page numbers.
List all the authors if the number of authors is less than 7, and list the first 6 authors followed by et al. if the number of authors is 7 or more. If the manuscript has only 2 authors, use “and” and not a comma between their names. Journal names are to be abbreviated in accordance with the style of Index Medicus (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed). In the case of a supplementary volume of a journal, record it in parentheses such as 75(S). All the references in other languages should be translated into English.

[Example 1] Yang SJ, Shin MG, Kim SH, Cho D, Kee SJ, Shin JH, et al. Usefulness of Track-C (total HCV core antigen) assay in anti-HCV positive patients. Korean J Lab Med 2004;24:244-9.
Kim HY. Recent advances of adult stem cell research. Korean J Lab Med 2003; 23(S1):S69-73.
[Example 2] Sabbath KD, Ball ED, Larcom P, Davis RB, Griffin JD. Heterogeneity of clonogenic cells in acute myeloblastic leukemia. J Clin Invest 1985;75:746-53.

2) While referring to books, mention the name of the authors, editor(s), name of the book, edition, place published, publisher, publishing company, published year, and page number. List it up to 2 authors.

[Example 3] Brecher ME, ed. Technical manual. 14th ed. Bethesda: American Association of Blood Banks, 2002:485-96.
[Example 4] Alberts B, Bray D, et al. eds. Molecular biology of the cell. 3rd ed. New York: Garland Publishing, 1994:491-9.
[Example 5] National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards. Performance standards for antimicrobial susceptibility testing. Tenth Informational supplement, M100-S10 (M2). Wayne, PA: National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards, 2000.

3) In the case of a book chapter, indicate the name of author of the chapter, title of the chapter, ‘In:’, editors, name of the book, edition, place published, publishing company, published year, and page number.

[Example 6] Bylund DJ and Nakamura RM. Organ-specific autoimmune diseases. In: Henry JB, ed. Clinical diagnosis and management by laboratory methods. 20th ed. Philadelphia: WB Saunders, 2001:1000-15.

4) In case of a website: Author, website address, uniform resource locator (URL), and the date of recent update.

[Example 7] Mitelman F, Johansson B, and Mertens F (Eds.), Mitelman database of chromosome aberrations in cancer. http://cgap.nci.nih.gov/Chromosomes/Mitelman (Updated on Nov 2005).

5) An abstract is not permitted to be cited as a reference. If a certain paper is accepted but not published as yet, it should be cited and described as “in press”. However, the author should have a letter permitting the citation from the author(s). If an author would like to cite a paper that has been submitted but has not been accepted as yet, it should be described as unpublished observation in the text and also should get a permit letter from the author(s). We do not recommend citing personal communications; however, if cited, identify the person and obtain a letter from the author authorizing the citation. If the author(s) cannot provide the reference paper, this reference can be requested to be deleted from the reference list even after the acceptance of the paper.

5. Tables and Figures should be prepared in accordance with the following guidelines:

1) Number the tables and figures according to their order of citation in the text. The heading should be inserted above the tables, but the legends should be located below the figures. Periods should not be used in the headings of tables but are required at the end of figure legends.
2) Only the first letter and proper nouns of the headings and legends of tables and figures should be in capital letters.
3) Vertical and horizontal lines should be omitted as much as possible. Text in the first column of a table should be aligned to the left. Single letters should be aligned centrally from the second column. If numbers are of the same unit, the decimal point should be the datum point. If there are symbols such as “-” indicating ranges, “+/-” and * symbols should be the datum point. Numbers with different units should be aligned to the right in all columns. If there are parentheses, the start of the parentheses and the last letter before it should be the datum point.
4) Only numbers can be used without parentheses or a period if it represents a case in a table. A heading representing cases should be noted as “No. case” and a heading representing the number of cases should be noted as “N”.
5) Explanations below should be in the order of superscripts and abbreviations. There should be a linebreak between the explanations of each superscript and/or abbreviations.
6) The superscript should be placed on the right side of a word and should be used in the following order, ‘*, †, ‡, §, ∥, ¶, **, ††, ‡‡, etc’. The following are examples of using superscript: (* not tested; † P<0.05).
7) All nonstandard abbreviations should be explained below. Define them as indicated in the following examples. If a certain abbreviation is repeated in all tables, mention the table number in which the abbreviation has been previously defined, for example 'See Table 1.'

[Example] Abbreviations: NT, not tested and SAA, severe aplastic anemia

8) If a figure is a microphotograph, the staining methods and the magnification should be indicated.
9) If a figure comprises 2 or more pictures, each should be explained either separately as “(A), explanation and (B), explanation” or together in parentheses.
[Example of Table]
Table 3. Bone marrow findings of patients diagnosed with peripheral T-cell lymphoma with bone marrow involvement
No. case HPH Tumor cells in aspirates (%) Infiltration pattern
in section		 Subtypes*
1 + 5 Interstitial ALC
2 + 10 Interstitial US
3 - <1 Focal US
4 - <1 Sinusoidal AIM

*based on the revised European-American classification of lymphoid neoplasms (REAL) classification system, proposed from the International Lymphoma Study Group in 1993.

Abbreviations: HPH, hemophagocytic histiocytosis; ALC, anaplastic large cell; AIM, angio-immunoblastic; and US, unspecified.

 


SUBMISSION, PEER-REVIEW, EDITING AND PUBLICATION OF MANUSCRIPTS

1. Every manuscript should be submitted as an electronic file through the following website, kjlm.org/submission/ along with the completed “Author’s Checklist” and a “Copyright Assignment and Disclosure of Conflict of Interest Form.” Each author should upload three separate manuscript files: Cover letter, author(s)’ information and the manuscript for peer-review excluding the information regarding the authors and their affiliations. Before uploading the manuscript for the first time, the author or peer-reviewer should create a new account for “the manuscript submission and review system for KJLM.” The author should upload the 2 sets of the manuscript files as described previously and the Author’s Checklist file. “The Copyright and Disclosure of Conflict of Interest Form” should be faxed or a scanned file signed by each author should be delivered to the editorial office (cpcp@yuhs.ac).

2. The authors should indicate 3 or more suggested reviewers and non-preferred reviewers, if necessary, in the online manuscript submission system.

3. The manuscript copyeditor examines the manuscript and can request a revision of the format of the manuscript within 1 week of receipt. The executive editor of the relevant area reviews and sends the manuscript to 3 appropriate peerreviewers. On the basis of the comments of the peer reviewers, the executive editor determines whether the article is acceptable or not. After the author responds to comments of all the 3 reviewers, the (revised) manuscript is sent to the editor- in-chief.

4. Every author can check the status and the results of the review on the website. All requests, (revised) manuscripts, and response letters are delivered through this website. All submissions, revisions, or responses are promptly notified to the concerned authors, reviewers, or editors by e-mail.

5. The editorial function of PDF or track change function of MS Word is recommended to be used by every reviewer and author for revision. If a reviewer cannot use the electronic file for review, he/she can print the file, mark the revision points, and send it to the executive editor by mail, and the editor can send it to the author, if necessary.

6. The executive editor can send those manuscripts that require statistical editing to a biostatistics expert before acceptance.

7. If a manuscript is accepted for publication, the editor-in-chief sends an acceptance letter to the author by e-mail, and requests the copyediting of the English and references.

8. Manuscripts are always rejected for one of the following cases:
  1) The manuscript is rejected by 2 or 3 reviewers.
  2) The author does not respond to the executive editor within 6 months after request for the correction.
  The authors will be notified of such rejection by e-mail.

9. The publication of the article is mainly decided by the executive editor after considering the comments of the reviewer. The final decision and order of publication is the duty of the editor-in-chief. Any manuscript that does not observe these policies and instructions will have to be revised and supplemented, and can be withheld from publication.

10. Addition or exclusion of any author will be decided by the editorial board after the submission of a written request signed duly by all authors.

11. Any errors discovered in the articles after publication should be submitted to the editor-in-chief in writing and be inserted in erratum.


OTHERS

1. Publication charges will be due on Original Articles, Case Reports, Brief Communications, and Letters to the Editor (But free for foreigner temporally until 2011). Illustrations that require extraordinary printing processes will be charged to the authors. The author is charged a fee for digital object identifier (DOI)/CrossRef. The minimum number of offprints is 50, which will be charged to the authors by the KSLM.

2. The KSLM has the copyright of every submitted manuscript approved for publication in this journal.

3. These instructions are based on the Vancouver Form, 5th edition. For any issues not addressed in these instructions, refer to the following materials.
http://www.icmje.org/
International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals. : Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication (Updated October 2007).

4. Website for electronic submission: kjlm.org/submission/

Editor-In-Chief
Jeong-Ho Kim, M.D., Ph.D.
Department of Laboratory Medicine, Gangnam Severance Hospital,
Yonsei University College of Medicine, 712 Eonjuro, Gangnamgu, Seoul, 135-720, Korea, Republic of
Tel: +82-2-2019-3532
Fax: +82-2-2019-4822
E-mail: jeongho@yuhs.ac.
Office E-mail: cpcp@yuhs.ac


Associate (Executive) Editor for Diagnostic Hematology
Young Kyung Lee, M.D., Ph.D.
Department of Laboratory Medicine, Hallym University College
of Medicine & Hallym University Sacred Heart Hospital
896 Pyungchondong, Dongangu, Anyang, Gyunggido 431-070, Korea, Republic of
Tel: +82-31-380-3930
Fax: +82-31-380-3934
E-mail: lyoungk@hallym.or.kr


Associate (Executive) Editor for Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Informatics
Junghan Song, M.D., Ph.D.
Department of Laboratory Medicine, Seoul National University
Bundang Hospital
166 Gumiro, Bundan-gu, Seongnam 463-707, Korea, Republic of
Tel: +82-31-787-7691
Fax: +82-31-787-4015
E-mail: songjhcp@snu.ac.kr


Associate (Executive) Editor for Clinical Microbiology
Jong Hee SHIN, M.D., Ph.D.
Department of Laboratory Medicine, Chonnam National University Medical School,
Chonnam National University Hospital,
671 Jebongno, Donggu, Gwangju, 501-757, Korea, Republic of
Tel: +82-62-220-5342
Fax: +82-62-224-2518
E-mail: shinjh@chonnam.ac.kr


Associate (Executive) Editor for Diagnostic Immunology and Transfusion Medicine
Young-Ae Lim, M.D., Ph.D.
Department of Laboratory Medicine, Ajou University Hospital,
Ajou University of College of Medicine,
San 5, Wonchon-dong, Yeongtong-gu, Suwon 443-721, Korea, Republic of
Tel: +82-31-219-5786
Fax: +82-31-219-5778
E-mail: limyoung@ajou.ac.kr


Associate (Executive) Editor for Diagnostic Genetics and General Laboratory Medicine
Kyung A Lee, M.D., Ph.D.
Department of Laboratory Medicine, Gangnam Severance Hospital,
Yonsei University College of Medicine,
712 Eonjuro, Gangnamgu, Seoul, 135-720, Korea, Republic of
Tel: +82-2-2019-3531
Fax: +82-2-2019-4822
E-mail: KAL1119@yuhs.ac


Assistant editor
Heejung Kim, M.D., Ph.D. (Yonsei Univeristy)
E-mail: hjkim12@yuhs.ac


English Editor
Myoung Hee Park, M.D., Ph.D. (Seoul National University)
E-mail: parkmhee@snu.ac.kr


Manuscript Editor
Ji-Hyun Lee
Room 402, Seojin Bldg, 415-10 Jangan-dong, Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul, 130-844 Korea
Tel: +82-2-795-9914
Fax: +82-2-790-4760
E-mail : kscp2@kams.or.kr
Manuscript and Reference Editor
Youn Hye Lee
E-mail : yhlee9@gmail.com