Fit and contribution
Assess whether the work fits the journal scope, addresses an important oncology question, and provides sufficient originality or practical value.
Reviewers
Reviewer Guidelines
These guidelines help reviewers provide fair, confidential, and useful assessments for manuscripts submitted to iCancer. Reviewers advise the editors; final editorial decisions are made by the journal.
Before accepting an invitation
- Accept only if the manuscript is within your expertise and you can complete the review by the due date.
- Declare any financial, institutional, personal, competitive, or intellectual conflict of interest before accepting.
- Keep the manuscript, review link, files, data, figures, and editorial communications confidential.
- Do not use unpublished information from the manuscript for your own work or for the benefit of others.
What reviewers should assess
Methods and evidence
Evaluate study design, sample selection, controls, statistical analysis, reproducibility, robustness, and whether the evidence supports the conclusions.
Ethics and transparency
Check ethics approval, consent, trial registration when applicable, conflicts of interest, funding transparency, data availability, image integrity, and AI-use disclosure.
Reporting quality
Consider clarity of the title, abstract, figures, tables, references, limitations, and whether the manuscript follows suitable reporting standards for the study type.
Writing the review report
- Start with a brief summary of the manuscript and your overall assessment.
- Separate major issues from minor points so authors and editors can act on them efficiently.
- Give specific comments tied to methods, data, figures, claims, references, or missing information.
- Use professional, constructive language. Do not include personal criticism or identifying information.
- Use confidential comments to the editor only for matters that should not be shared with authors.
Recommendation options
| Recommendation | When to use |
|---|---|
| Accept | The manuscript is scientifically sound and requires no substantive revision. |
| Minor Revision | The work is potentially acceptable after limited clarification, correction, or presentation improvements. |
| Major Revision | The work may be suitable, but important methodological, analytical, interpretive, or reporting issues must be addressed. |
| Reject | The manuscript has major flaws, insufficient novelty, inadequate evidence, serious scope mismatch, or unresolved ethical concerns. |
Use of AI tools
- Reviewers remain fully responsible for their report and recommendation.
- Do not upload confidential manuscripts, data, figures, reviewer links, or editorial communications to public AI tools.
- AI tools may be used only for limited language support or personal organization when confidentiality and data protection can be maintained.
- Any AI-assisted review support that could affect the evaluation should be disclosed to the editorial office.
Peer review process
Paper submitted
The manuscript enters the iCancer submission system.
Editorial check
The editor or editorial board checks journal fit, scope, completeness, ethics, and basic quality.
Sent for peer review
Suitable submissions are assigned to reviewers. Submissions that are out of scope or incomplete may be declined or returned before review.
Reviewer evaluation
Reviewers assess significance, presentation, evidence, methodology, reporting transparency, and ethics.
Report and recommendation
Reviewers submit comments to the authors, confidential comments to the editor when needed, and one recommendation.
Editorial decision
The editor evaluates the reviews and informs the authors of the decision and next steps.
Revision, rejection, or publication
Revised manuscripts may be reassessed. Accepted manuscripts move to production and online publication.