Guide for authors

REC: CardioClinics (ISSN 2605-1532, eISSN 2605-1575) is an official journal of the Spanish Society of Cardiology within the REC publications family (REC publications) devoted to the study, prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases. REC: CardioClinics is an international, quarterly, scientific journal that covers the study, prevention and management of clinical cardiovascular medicine. It publishes articles in their language of reception (Spanish or English) in its digital edition. The journal adheres to the norms of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors and the directives of the Committee on Publication Ethics and the Council of Science Editors. REC: CardioClinics is indexed on ScienceDirect, Scopus, Google Scholar and Latindex.

REC: CardioClinics publishes the following types of papers: original articles on clinical research, scientific letters, images in cardiology, the Resident's corner articles, letters to the Editor, editorials, reviews of current subjects and special articles. REC: CardioClinics follows a double-blind peer review model, which means that both the authors and reviewers are anonymous. The original articles, review articles, scientific letters and images in cardiology that the editorial team consider fit the editorial line of the journal are assessed by external peer review designated by the Editors. Furthermore, the team can submit articles from the remaining categories for review if they deem it appropriate. Decisions are communicated by email. Articles sent to REC: CardioClinics must be original and must not have been published beforehand or be under review in any other publication.

Acceptance for publication is based on the originality, scientific quality, impact on cardiovascular disease and the editorial line of the journal. Editorial articles, special articles and the Resident's corner articles will only be considered upon prior request by the Editor. However, proposals can be sent by email for the attention of the Editor-in-Chief to recpublications@secardiologia.es. The editorial priority of these manuscripts will be assessed fundamentally by the editorial team, who will send the manuscript for external review if they deem it necessary.

Papers accepted for publication will remain the property of the Spanish Society of Cardiology and their total or partial reproduction must be duly authorised. The corresponding author must complete the letter of assignment of these rights once the article has been accepted.

Original articles

Clinical research papers and other original contributions on the aetiology, pathophysiology, pathological anatomy, epidemiology, diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular diseases. The maximum length will be 5000 words, including the text, the references list, the figure legends, and excluding the tables alone. The inclusion of a central illustration is optional. Please check the “Central illustration” section for details. The manuscript will comprise:

• Title (fewer than 120 characters, including spaces).
• Structured abstract (maximum 250 words) and keywords (from 3 to 5). It will be structured into 4 sections: a) Introduction and objectives; b) Methods; c) Results, and d) Conclusions. It must not contain references. A maximum of 3 abbreviations will be accepted provided they are recognised by the scientific community and have been used a minimum of 3 times. If an abbreviation is used for the first time, it will be preceded by the complete term; unless it is a common unit of measurement (this does not include effect units). Acronyms of the names of studies, trials, registries and scales will be accepted without spelling them out the first time, as long as they are widely used in the literature.
• Table of abbreviations (maximum of 6, from the most frequent in the text).
• The text will comprise the following sections: a) Introduction; b) Methods; c) Results; d) Discussion, and e) Conclusions. Each section can be organised into subsections.
• Key points. The following information will be included at the end of the article: - What is known about the subject? Write 3 or 4 sentences that summarise the essential points on what is known about the subject of research (maximum of 100 words in total).
  - Does it contribute anything new? Write 3 or 4 sentences to summarise the key points of the new contribution the paper is making (maximum 100 words in total).
• References.
• Tables (optional).
• Figure legends and figures (optional).

Within this typology, articles on study methodology will also be considered for publication, which meet the following norms:

• Randomised clinical trial
• Awarded the consent of the CEIC (Coordinating Centre of Clinical Research Ethics Committees)
• Demonstrated funding
• Registered and endorsed by a clinical trial registry (e.g. www.clinicaltrials.gov)

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses should follow the PRISMA statement criteria (https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n71).

Review articles

The manuscript will not exceed 6000 words, including the text, the references list, the figure legends, and excluding the tables alone. The manuscript will comprise:

• Title (fewer than 120 characters, including spaces).
• No structured abstract (maximum 150 words) and keywords (from 3 to 5).
• Table of abbreviations (maximum of 6, from the most frequent in the text).
• Text.
• References.
• Tables (optional).
• Figure legends and figures (optional).

Scientific Letters

This section will consider articles that include research with patients or basic science, or case series of particular clinical relevance. Scientific letters with only 1 case, and with iconographic relevance, can be submitted under the typology of "image in cardiology". They will be a maximum of 1500 words long, including the text, the references list, the figure legends, and excluding the tables alone.

• Title (fewer than 120 characters, including spaces).
• Maximum of 6 authors.
• With no abstract, keywords or hierarchy of titles and subtitles.
• Maximum of 6 references.
• Maximum of 2 elements (figures or tables).

Images in cardiology

This section includes observations or experiences relating to novel clinical, diagnostic and therapeutic aspects of any cardiovascular disorder with characteristics that can be illustrated by a figure and summarised in a brief text, with a maximum of 250 words.

• Title fewer than 8 words.
• Maximum of 4 authors.
• The explanatory text contains the most relevant information, with no references or figure legends. All the symbols in the images will be appropriately explained in the text.
• Maximum of 1 figure.

Letters to the Editor

This section refers to correspondence on editorial subjects, subjects generating scientific debate, or subjects relating to articles published in the journal. Only letters received within 12 months after publication of the reference article in an issue of REC: CardioClinics will be accepted for consideration. They will be a maximum of 800 words long, including the text, the references list, and the figure legends.

• Title (fewer than 120 characters, including spaces).
• Maximum of 4 authors.
• Maximum of 2 figures and no tables.

Submit your article through our manuscript management system https://www.editorialmanager.com/cardioclinics/, which will guide you step by step through the process of entering the details of your article and attaching files. The system will create a single PDF document with all the files that make up the manuscript in order to conduct the peer review process.

Authors will be able to view the status of their manuscript through the manuscript manager.

This journal accepts articles for review in Spanish or English and publishes the articles accepted in their language of submission. Titles, abstracts and keywords will be published in both languages.

You can use this list to carry out a final check of your submission before you send it to the journal for review. Please check the relevant section in this Guide for Authors for more details.
Ensure that the following items are present:
One author has been designated as the corresponding author with the e-mail address. If the authors wish, they can provide one or more Twitter profiles, which will be published as contact information in the accepted article to promote its dissemination. They can be the personal accounts of one or more authors or institutional accounts, and they must be agreed between all manuscript authors.
All necessary files have been uploaded:

Manuscript:

• Include keywords
• All figures (include relevant captions)
• All tables (including titles, description, footnotes)
• Ensure all figure and table citations in the text match the files provided
• Indicate clearly if color should be used for any figures in print

Key points (where applicable)
Supplemental files (where applicable)

Further considerations

• Manuscript has been 'spell checked' and 'grammar checked'
• All references mentioned in the Reference List are cited in the text, and vice versa
• Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Internet)
• A competing interests statement is provided, even if the authors have no competing interests to declare
• Journal policies detailed in this guide have been reviewed
• Referee suggestions and contact details provided, based on journal requirements

For further information, visit our Support Center.

Please see our information pages on Ethics in publishing and Ethical guidelines for journal publication.

Relevant ethical documentation should be made available if required by the editorial team.

REC: CardioClinics is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE, http://www.publicationethics.org/) and adheres to their recommendations and principles.

If the work involves the use of human subjects, the author should ensure that the work described has been carried out in accordance with The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for experiments involving humans. The manuscript should be in line with the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals and aim for the inclusion of representative human populations (sex, age and ethnicity) as per those recommendations. The terms sex and gender should be used correctly.

Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects. The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed.

All animal experiments should comply with the ARRIVE guidelines and should be carried out in accordance with the U.K. Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act, 1986 and associated guidelines, EU Directive 2010/63/EU for animal experiments, or the National Institutes of Health guide for the care and use of Laboratory animals (NIH Publications No. 8023, revised 1978) and the authors should clearly indicate in the manuscript that such guidelines have been followed. The sex of animals must be indicated, and where appropriate, the influence (or association) of sex on the results of the study.

Studies on patients or volunteers require ethics committee approval and informed consent, which should be documented in the paper. Appropriate consents, permissions and releases must be obtained where an author wishes to include case details or other personal information or images of patients and any other individuals in an Elsevier publication. Written consents must be retained by the author but copies should not be provided to the journal. Only if specifically requested by the journal in exceptional circumstances (for example if a legal issue arises) the author must provide copies of the consents or evidence that such consents have been obtained. For more information, please review the Elsevier Policy on the Use of Images or Personal Information of Patients or other Individuals. Unless you have written permission from the patient (or, where applicable, the next of kin), the personal details of any patient included in any part of the article and in any supplementary data (including all illustrations and videos) must be removed before submission.

All authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. Examples of potential competing interests include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding.

Authors must disclose any interests in two places: 1. A summary declaration of interest statement in the title page file (if double-blind) or the manuscript file (if single-blind). If there are no interests to declare then please state this: 'Declarations of interest: none'. This summary statement will be ultimately published if the article is accepted. 2. Detailed disclosures as part of a separate Declaration of Interest form, which forms part of the journal's official records. It is important for potential interests to be declared in both places and that the information matches. More information.

The below guidance only refers to the writing process, and not to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools to analyse and draw insights from data as part of the research process.

Where authors use generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process, authors should only use these technologies to improve readability and language. Applying the technology should be done with human oversight and control, and authors should carefully review and edit the result, as AI can generate authoritative-sounding output that can be incorrect, incomplete or biased. AI and AI-assisted technologies should not be listed as an author or co-author, or be cited as an author. Authorship implies responsibilities and tasks that can only be attributed to and performed by humans, as outlined in Elsevier's AI policy for authors.

Authors should disclose in their manuscript the use of AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process by following the instructions below. A statement will appear in the published work. Please note that authors are ultimately responsible and accountable for the contents of the work.

Disclosure instructions
Authors must disclose the use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process by adding a statement at the end of their manuscript in the core manuscript file, before the References list. The statement should be placed in a new section entitled ‘Statement on the use of artificial intelligence’.

Statement: During the preparation of this work the author(s) used [NAME TOOL / SERVICE] in order to [REASON]. After using this tool/service, the author(s) reviewed and edited the content as needed and take(s) full responsibility for the content of the publication.

This declaration does not apply to the use of basic tools for checking grammar, spelling, references etc.

Use of AI for data analysis in research
If the authors have used AI to analyse and extract knowledge from the data as part of the research process, this should be stated in the corresponding section. In addition, the type of tool and the way in which it has been used to make the results reproducible should be indicated in the "Methods" section.

Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis, see 'Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication' section of our ethics policy for more information), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, including electronically without the written consent of the copyright-holder. To verify originality, your article may be checked by the originality detection service Crossref Similarity Check.

Please note that preprints can be shared anywhere at any time, in line with Elsevier's sharing policy. Sharing your preprints e.g. on a preprint server will not count as prior publication (see 'Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication' for more information).

Reporting guidance
For research involving or pertaining to humans, animals or eukaryotic cells, investigators should integrate sex and gender-based analyses (SGBA) into their research design according to funder/sponsor requirements and best practices within a field. Authors should address the sex and/or gender dimensions of their research in their article. In cases where they cannot, they should discuss this as a limitation to their research's generalizability. Importantly, authors should explicitly state what definitions of sex and/or gender they are applying to enhance the precision, rigor and reproducibility of their research and to avoid ambiguity or conflation of terms and the constructs to which they refer (see Definitions section below). Authors can refer to the Sex and Gender Equity in Research guidelines (SAGER) and the SAGER guidelines checklist. These offer systematic approaches to the use and editorial review of sex and gender information in study design, data analysis, outcome reporting and research interpretation - however, please note there is no single, universally agreed-upon set of guidelines for defining sex and gender.

Definitions
Sex generally refers to a set of biological attributes that are associated with physical and physiological features (e.g., chromosomal genotype, hormonal levels, internal and external anatomy). A binary sex categorization (male/female) is usually designated at birth ("sex assigned at birth"), most often based solely on the visible external anatomy of a newborn. Gender generally refers to socially constructed roles, behaviors, and identities of women, men and gender-diverse people that occur in a historical and cultural context and may vary across societies and over time. Gender influences how people view themselves and each other, how they behave and interact and how power is distributed in society. Sex and gender are often incorrectly portrayed as binary (female/male or woman/man) and unchanging whereas these constructs actually exist along a spectrum and include additional sex categorizations and gender identities such as people who are intersex/have differences of sex development (DSD) or identify as non-binary. Moreover, the terms "sex" and "gender" can be ambiguous—thus it is important for authors to define the manner in which they are used. In addition to this definition guidance and the SAGER guidelines, the resources on this page offer further insight around sex and gender in research studies.

All authors should have made substantial contributions to all of the following: (1) the conception and design of the study, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, (3) final approval of the version to be submitted.

Authors are expected to consider carefully the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript and provide the definitive list of authors at the time of the original submission. Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made only before the manuscript has been accepted and only if approved by the journal Editor. To request such a change, the Editor must receive the following from the corresponding author: (a) the reason for the change in author list and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed.
Only in exceptional circumstances will the Editor consider the addition, deletion or rearrangement of authors after the manuscript has been accepted. While the Editor considers the request, publication of the manuscript will be suspended. If the manuscript has already been published in an online issue, any requests approved by the Editor will result in a corrigendum.

In line with the position of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, the journal will not consider results posted in the same clinical trials registry in which primary registration resides to be prior publication if the results posted are presented in the form of a brief structured (less than 500 words) abstract or table. However, divulging results in other circumstances (e.g., investors' meetings) is discouraged and may jeopardise consideration of the manuscript. Authors should fully disclose all posting in registries of results of the same or closely related work.

Randomized controlled trials should be presented according to the CONSORT guidelines. At manuscript submission, authors must provide the CONSORT checklist accompanied by a flow diagram that illustrates the progress of patients through the trial, including recruitment, enrollment, randomization, withdrawal and completion, and a detailed description of the randomization procedure. The CONSORT checklist and template flow diagram are available online.

Registration in a public trials registry is a condition for publication of clinical trials in this journal in accordance with International Committee of Medical Journal Editors recommendations. Trials must register at or before the onset of patient enrolment. The clinical trial registration number should be included at the end of the abstract of the article. A clinical trial is defined as any research study that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate the effects of health outcomes. Health-related interventions include any intervention used to modify a biomedical or health-related outcome (for example drugs, surgical procedures, devices, behavioural treatments, dietary interventions, and process-of-care changes). Health outcomes include any biomedical or health-related measures obtained in patients or participants, including pharmacokinetic measures and adverse events. Purely observational studies (those in which the assignment of the medical intervention is not at the discretion of the investigator) will not require registration.

This journal uses the Elsevier Article Transfer Service to find the best home for your manuscript. This means that if an editor feels your manuscript is more suitable for an alternative journal, you might be asked to consider transferring the manuscript to such a journal. The recommendation might be provided by a Journal Editor, a dedicated Scientific Managing Editor, a tool assisted recommendation, or a combination. If you agree, your manuscript will be transferred, though you will have the opportunity to make changes to the manuscript before the submission is complete. Please note that your manuscript will be independently reviewed by the new journal. More information.

Find out how you can share your research published in Elsevier journals.

You are requested to identify who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article and to briefly describe the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the article for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement then this should be stated.

If no funding has been provided for the research, please include the following sentence:

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

This journal offers authors two choices to publish their research:

Subscription

• Articles are made available to subscribers as well as developing countries and patient groups through our access programs.
• No open access publication fee.

The author is entitled to post the accepted manuscript in their institution's repository and make this public after an embargo period (known as green Open Access). The published journal article cannot be shared publicly, for example on ResearchGate or Academia.edu, to ensure the sustainability of peer-reviewed research in journal publications.

This journal has an embargo period of 12 months.

Gold open access

• Articles are freely available to both subscribers and the wider public with permitted reuse.
• The Article Publishing Charge (full-length article 1900 euros and short article 740 euros) is payable by authors or their research funder.

The publication choice will have no effect on the peer review process or acceptance of your submission.

In all articles published Gold Open Access, we offer authors a choice of Creative Commons license, which defines the permitted reuse of articles.

Please, visit our Open Access page for more information.

Researcher Academy is a free e-learning platform designed to support early and mid-career researchers throughout their research journey. The "Learn" environment at Researcher Academy offers several interactive modules, webinars, downloadable guides and resources to guide you through the process of writing for research and going through peer review. Feel free to use these free resources to improve your submission and navigate the publication process with ease.

Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these). Authors who feel their English language manuscript may require editing to eliminate possible grammatical or spelling errors and to conform to correct scientific English may wish to use the English Language Editing service available from Elsevier's Author Services.

Our online submission system guides you stepwise through the process of entering your article details and uploading your files. The system converts your article files to a single PDF file used in the peer-review process. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, is sent by e-mail.

Please submit your article via https://www.editorialmanager.com/cardioclinics

This journal operates a double-blind review process. All contributions will be initially assessed by the editor for suitability for the journal. Papers deemed suitable are then typically sent to a minimum of two independent expert reviewers to assess the scientific quality of the paper. The Editor is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of articles. The Editor's decision is final. Editors are not involved in decisions about papers that they have written themselves or have been written by family members or colleagues or which relate to products or services in which the editor has an interest. Any such submission is subject to all of the journal's usual procedures, with peer review handled independently of the relevant editor and their research groups. More information on types of peer review.

This journal uses double-anonymized review, which means the identities of the authors are concealed from the reviewers, and vice versa. More information is available on our website. To facilitate this, please include the following separately:
Title page (with author details): This should include the title, authors' names affiliations, acknowledgements and any declaration of interest statement, and the e-mail address of the corresponding author. If the authors wish, they can provide a Twitter profile. It can be the personal account of one of the authors or an institutional account.
Anonymized manuscript (no author details): The main body of the paper (including the references, figures, tables and any acknowledgements) should not include any identifying information, such as the authors' names or affiliations.

It is important that the file be saved in the native format of the word processor used. The text should be in single-column format. Keep the layout of the text as simple as possible. Most formatting codes will be removed and replaced on processing the article. In particular, do not use the word processor's options to justify text or to hyphenate words. However, do use bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts etc. When preparing tables, if you are using a table grid, use only one grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row. If no grid is used, use tabs, not spaces, to align columns. The electronic text should be prepared in a way very similar to that of conventional manuscripts (see also the Guide to Publishing with Elsevier). Note that source files of figures, tables and text graphics will be required whether or not you embed your figures in the text. See also the section on Electronic artwork.
To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the 'spell-check' and 'grammar-check' functions of your word processor.

Divide your article into clearly defined sections. Each subsection is given a brief heading. Each heading should appear on its own separate line. Subsections should be used as much as possible when cross-referencing text: refer to the subsection by heading as opposed to simply 'the text'.

State the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.

Provide sufficient details to allow the work to be reproduced by an independent researcher. Methods that are already published should be summarized, and indicated by a reference. If quoting directly from a previously published method, use quotation marks and also cite the source. Any modifications to existing methods should also be described.

Results should be clear and concise.

This should explore the significance of the results of the work, not repeat them. A combined Results and Discussion section is often appropriate. Avoid extensive citations and discussion of published literature.

The main conclusions of the study may be presented in a short Conclusions section, which may stand alone or form a subsection of a Discussion or Results and Discussion section.

If there is more than one appendix, they should be identified as A, B, etc.

• Title. Concise and informative. Titles are often used in information-retrieval systems. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible.
• Author names and affiliations. Please clearly indicate the given name(s) and family name(s) of each author and check that all names are accurately spelled. You can add your name between parentheses in your own script behind the English transliteration. Present the authors' affiliation (where the actual work was done) below the names. Indicate all affiliations with a lower-case superscript letter immediately after the author's name and in front of the appropriate address. The same letter must precede the institutional information (department, institution, city, and country).
• Corresponding author. Clearly indicate the corresponding author, and ensure that the e-mail address given is correct and kept up-to-date during the editorial process. It is understood that the corresponding author takes responsibility for following these guidelines and that all coauthors are aware of them, have participated in preparing the manuscript, and fully agree on its content. We recommend maintaining the same corresponding author throughout all editorial stages and publication, as well as in postpublication. If the corresponding author of a published article differs from the one who submitted the article via Editorial Manager, both authors will assume all responsibilities related to the corresponding authorship.

A structured abstract, by means of appropriate headings, should provide the context or background for the research and should state its purpose, basic procedures (selection of study subjects or laboratory animals, observational and analytical methods), main findings (giving specific effect sizes and their statistical significance, if possible), and principal conclusions. It should emphasize new and important aspects of the study or observations.

The headings will consist of: «Introduction and Objectives», «Methods», «Results» and «Conclusions».

This section does not apply to this journal.

Immediately after the abstract, provide a maximum of 5 keywords, and avoiding general and plural terms and multiple concepts (avoid, for example, 'and', 'of'). Be sparing with abbreviations: only abbreviations firmly established in the field may be eligible. These keywords will be used for indexing purposes.

List funding sources in this standard way to facilitate compliance to funder's requirements:

Funding: This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health [grant numbers xxxx, yyyy]; the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, WA [grant number zzzz]; and the United States Institutes of Peace [grant number aaaa].

It is not necessary to include detailed descriptions on the program or type of grants and awards. When funding is from a block grant or other resources available to a university, college, or other research institution, submit the name of the institute or organization that provided the funding.

In case of individual funding to one of the authors, this should be reflected separately. For example:

This work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health [grant number xxxx, yyyy]. Dr. Garcia has received funding from (name of institution).

If no funding has been provided for the research, please include the following sentence:

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Whilst it is accepted that authors sometimes need to manipulate images for clarity, manipulation for purposes of deception or fraud will be seen as scientific ethical abuse and will be dealt with accordingly. For graphical images, this journal is applying the following policy: no specific feature within an image may be enhanced, obscured, moved, removed, or introduced. Adjustments of brightness, contrast, or color balance are acceptable if and as long as they do not obscure or eliminate any information present in the original. Nonlinear adjustments (e.g. changes to gamma settings) must be disclosed in the figure legend.

General points
• Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of your original artwork.
• Embed the used fonts if the application provides that option.
• Aim to use the following fonts in your illustrations: Arial, Courier, Times New Roman, Symbol, or use fonts that look similar.
• Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text.
• Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files.
• Provide captions to illustrations separately.
• Size the illustrations close to the desired dimensions of the published version.
• Submit each illustration as a separate file.
• Ensure that color images are accessible to all, including those with impaired color vision.

A detailed guide on electronic artwork is available.
You are urged to visit this site; some excerpts from the detailed information are given here.

Formats
If your electronic artwork is created in a Microsoft Office application (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) then please supply 'as is' in the native document format.
Regardless of the application used other than Microsoft Office, when your electronic artwork is finalized, please 'Save as' or convert the images to one of the following formats (note the resolution requirements for line drawings, halftones, and line/halftone combinations given below):
EPS (or PDF): Vector drawings, embed all used fonts.
TIFF (or JPEG): Color or grayscale photographs (halftones), keep to a minimum of 300 dpi.
TIFF (or JPEG): Bitmapped (pure black & white pixels) line drawings, keep to a minimum of 1000 dpi.
TIFF (or JPEG): Combinations bitmapped line/half-tone (color or grayscale), keep to a minimum of 500 dpi.
Please do not:
• Supply files that are optimized for screen use (e.g., GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG); these typically have a low number of pixels and limited set of colors;
• Supply files that are too low in resolution;
• Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.

Please make sure that artwork files are in an acceptable format (TIFF (or JPEG), EPS (or PDF) or MS Office files) and with the correct resolution. If, together with your accepted article, you submit usable color figures then Elsevier will ensure, at no additional charge, that these figures will appear in color online (e.g., ScienceDirect and other sites). Further information on the preparation of electronic artwork.

Ensure that each illustration has a caption. Supply captions separately, not attached to the figure. A caption should comprise a brief title (not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used.

Please submit tables as editable text and not as images. Tables can be placed either next to the relevant text in the article, or on separate page(s) at the end. Number tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text and place any table notes below the table body. Be sparing in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in them do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article. Please avoid using vertical rules and shading in table cells.

Central illustration
It is optional to send a central illustration in the original articles. If the authors wish to include a central illustration, it should be referenced in the text and numbered in sequence with the rest of the figures in the manuscript. The corresponding figure legend should specify that it is the central illustration of the article and provide a description of the figure. The central illustration should follow the abovementioned guidelines for figures included in these instructions.

Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Any references cited in the abstract must be given in full. Unpublished results and personal communications are not recommended in the reference list, but may be mentioned in the text. If these references are included in the reference list they should follow the standard reference style of the journal and should include a substitution of the publication date with either 'Unpublished results' or 'Personal communication'. Citation of a reference as 'in press' implies that the item has been accepted for publication.

Increased discoverability of research and high quality peer review are ensured by online links to the sources cited. In order to allow us to create links to abstracting and indexing services, such as Scopus, CrossRef and PubMed, please ensure that data provided in the references are correct. Please note that incorrect surnames, journal/book titles, publication year and pagination may prevent link creation. When copying references, please be careful as they may already contain errors. Use of the DOI is highly encouraged.

A DOI is guaranteed never to change, so you can use it as a permanent link to any electronic article. An example of a citation using DOI for an article not yet in an issue is: VanDecar J.C., Russo R.M., James D.E., Ambeh W.B., Franke M. (2003). Aseismic continuation of the Lesser Antilles slab beneath northeastern Venezuela. Journal of Geophysical Research, https://doi.org/10.1029/2001JB000884. Please note the format of such citations should be in the same style as all other references in the paper.

As a minimum, the full URL should be given and the date when the reference was last accessed. Any further information, if known (DOI, author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.), should also be given. Web references can be listed separately (e.g., after the reference list) under a different heading if desired, or can be included in the reference list.

This journal encourages you to cite underlying or relevant datasets in your manuscript by citing them in your text and including a data reference in your Reference List. Data references should include the following elements: author name(s), dataset title, data repository, version (where available), year, and global persistent identifier. Add [dataset] immediately before the reference so we can properly identify it as a data reference. This identifier will not appear in your published article.

Where a preprint has subsequently become available as a peer-reviewed publication, the formal publication should be used as the reference. If there are preprints that are central to your work or that cover crucial developments in the topic, but are not yet formally published, these may be referenced. Preprints should be clearly marked as such, for example by including the word preprint, or the name of the preprint server, as part of the reference. The preprint DOI should also be provided.

Please ensure that the words 'this issue' are added to any references in the list (and any citations in the text) to other articles in the same Special Issue.

• References must follow the format used by the American Medical Association.
• List references numerically, in superscript format, in the order they first appear in the text.
• Do not include mention of personal communications or unpublished data. Such references, however, may be included within parentheses in the text
• If a published paper is mentioned in the figures or tables, the corresponding reference must be cited in sequential order with the other references in the text, i.e., as if this information appeared in the point where the element is mentioned in the manuscript.
• When abstracts are cited, they should be identified as [abstract] within square brackets after the title, and they should be less than 2 years old.
• In references to medical journals, use the standard abbreviation of the journal title.
• References should be sent as standard text, never as footnotes. The field codes of reference management programs are not acceptable; if the authors have worked with reference management software, the file must be converted to plain text before it is submitted.

Journal article. List all authors. If there are more than 6 authors, list only the first 3, followed by the Latin abbreviation 'et al'. Example: Luttik MLA, Jaarsma T, Van Geel PP, et al. Long-term follow-up in optimally treated and stable heart failure patients: primary care vs heart failure clinic. Results of the COACH-2 study. Eur J Heart Fail. 2014;16:1241-1248.

Ahead of print article. Authors, title, journal, year, web page. Example: Senoo K, Proietti M, Lane DA, Lip GY. Evaluation of the HAS-BLED, ATRIA and ORBIT bleeding risk scores in atrial fibrillation patients on warfarin. Am J Med. 2015. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjmed.2015.10.001.

Electronic book. Authors, title [Internet], city, publisher, year, web page. Example: Sobieraj DM, White CM, Kluger J, et al. Adjunctive Devices for Patients With Acute Coronary Syndrome Undergoing Percutaneous Coronary Intervention [Internet]. Rockville (MD): Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (US); 2011. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0034051/.

Book chapter. Authors, chapter title, editors, book title, city, publisher, year, and page numbers. Example: Josephson ME. Intraventricular conduction disturbances. In: Josephson ME, ed. Clinical cardiacelectrophysiology. Techniques and interpretations. 3a ed. Philadelphia: Lippincot Williams & Wilkins; 2002. p. 110-139.

Book. Cite the specific pages. Example: Rothman K, Greenland S. Modern epidemiology. Measures of effect and measures of association. Philadelphia: Lippincott-Raven; 1998. p. 51-70.

Web page. Example: National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. Chronic heart failure in adults: management. 2010. Available at: http://www.nice.org.uk/Guidance/cg108. Accessed 6 Dec 2011.

Unpublished conference abstract. Veronesi F, Korfiati A, Buffat R, Raubal M. Assessing accuracy and geographical transferability of machine learning algorithms for environmental modelling (8). In: Agile 2017. 20th Conference on Geo-Information Science; 2017 May 9-12; Wageningen, The Netherlands. Available at: https://agile-gi.eu/conferences/agile-gi-conferences/agile-2017-wageningen. Accessed 17 Oct 2024.

Supplement. Example: Malecka-Tendera E, Mazur A. Childhood obesity: a pandemic of the twenty-first century. Int J Obes (Lond). 2006;30(Suppl 2):S1-3. 

Database. Example: Base de Datos Clínicos de Atención Primaria (BDCAP). Morbilidad registrada en Atención Primaria. Madrid: Ministerio de Sanidad, Servicios Sociales e Igualdad; 2013. http://www.mscbs.gob.es/estadEstudios/estadisticas/estadisticas/estMinisterio/SIAP/home.htm. Accessed 4 Mar 2019.

Journal names should be abbreviated according to the List of Title Word Abbreviations.

Elsevier accepts video material and animation sequences to support and enhance your scientific research. Authors who have video or animation files that they wish to submit with their article are strongly encouraged to include links to these within the body of the article. This can be done in the same way as a figure or table by referring to the video or animation content and noting in the body text where it should be placed. All submitted files should be properly labeled so that they directly relate to the video file's content. In order to ensure that your video or animation material is directly usable, please provide the file in one of our recommended file formats with a preferred maximum size of 150 MB per file, 1 GB in total. Video and animation files supplied will be published online in the electronic version of your article in Elsevier Web products, including ScienceDirect. Please supply 'stills' with your files: you can choose any frame from the video or animation or make a separate image. These will be used instead of standard icons and will personalize the link to your video data. For more detailed instructions please visit our video instruction pages. Note: since video and animation cannot be embedded in the print version of the journal, please provide text for both the electronic and the print version for the portions of the article that refer to this content.

Include interactive data visualizations in your publication and let your readers interact and engage more closely with your research. Follow the instructions here to find out about available data visualization options and how to include them with your article.

Supplementary data such as applications, images and sound clips, can be published with your article to enhance it. Submitted supplementary items are published exactly as they are received (Excel or PowerPoint files will appear as such online). Please submit your material together with the article and supply a concise, descriptive caption for each supplementary file. If you wish to make changes to supplementary data during any stage of the process, please make sure to provide an updated file. Do not annotate any corrections on a previous version. Please switch off the 'Track Changes' option in Microsoft Office files as these will appear in the published version.

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If you do not wish to use the PDF annotations function, you may list the corrections (including replies to the Query Form) and return them to Elsevier in an e-mail. Please list your corrections quoting line number. If, for any reason, this is not possible, then mark the corrections and any other comments (including replies to the Query Form) on a printout of your proof and scan the pages and return via e-mail. Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text, tables and figures. Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the Editor. We will do everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately. It is important to ensure that all corrections are sent back to us in one communication: please check carefully before replying, as inclusion of any subsequent corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility.

The corresponding author will be notified and receive a link to the published version of the open access article on ScienceDirect. This link is in the form of an article DOI link which can be shared via email and social networks. For an extra charge, paper offprints can be ordered via the offprint order form which is sent once the article is accepted for publication. 

Contact our editorial office (recpublications@secardiologia.es o +34 91 724 23 70) if you require further clarification. For any query or complaint in relation to the editorial processing of your article or with the final editorial decision, send an email for the attention of the Editor-in-Chief to recpublications@secardiologia.es. The Editor-in-Chief will personally check all complaints and appeals and, if they deem it appropriate, consult other members of the editorial team. We will aim to respond to your complaint in the shortest time possible.

The journal will use the necessary means to correct the literature and ensure the integrity of the published content. To do so, it shall use the appropriate means (corrections, expressions of concern, retractions) depending on the problem detected and its impact, as soon as possible after the identification of the problem. For retractions, REC: CardioClinics follows the COPE guidelines, available at https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.1.4.