Submissions

Author Guidelines

The Plastic Reconstructive & Regenerative Surgery (PRRS) is the Official Journal of the Italian Society of Microsurgery (SIM) and Italian Society of Plastic Reconstructive - Regenerative and Aesthetic Surgery (SICPRE), and Partnership of Italian Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (AICPE) and Italian Society of Aesthetic Medicine (SIME). It is a new independent international journal designed for experts of microsurgery, transplant surgery, reconstructive, regenerative and aesthetic plastic surgery.

The material submitted should not have been previously published, and should not be under consideration (in whole or in part) elsewhere. Manuscripts must be prepared in accordance with the “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals” developed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. If an experiment on humans is described, a statement must be included that the work was performed in accordance with the principles of the 1983 Declaration of Helsinki.

Authors are also strongly recommended to review the following guidelines and the “template”.

Authors need to register with the journal (http:www.prrsjournal.com) prior to submitting their article via the online submission platform (OJS) or, if already registered, can simply login and begin the five-step process.
Texts must be original and should not be presented simultaneously to another journal.
All scientific papers are published in English (British spelling and grammar) with English titles, abstracts and key words. Only papers strictly adhering to the editorial instructions outlined herein will be considered for publication. Acceptance is upon the critical assessment by experts in the field (Reviewers), the introduction of any changes requested and the final decision of the Editor-in-Chief.
Submission implies that publication has been approved by all co-authors, as well as by the director of the Institute or Department where the work has been carried out.
The Authors are solely responsible for the statements made in their paper, and must specify that consent has been obtained from patients taking part in the investigations and for the reproduction of any photographs. For studies performed on laboratory animals, the authors must state that the relevant national laws or institutional guidelines have been adhered to.

Ethical consideration
All manuscripts submitted to PRRS must include a statement detailing this, including the name of the ethics committee and the reference number where appropriate. In case a study has been granted an exemption from requiring ethics approval, this should be detailed in the manuscript, together with the name of the ethics committee that granted the exemption. Manuscripts may be rejected if the Editor considers that the research has not been carried out within an appropriate ethical framework.
If a study has not been submitted to an ethics committee prior to commencing, retrospective ethics approval usually cannot be obtained and it may not be possible to consider the manuscript for peer review. How to proceed in such cases is at the Editor(s)’ discretion.
Authors will be expected to have obtained ethics committee approval and informed patient consent for any experimental use of a novel procedure or tool where a clear clinical advantage based on clinical need was not apparent before treatment.
For retrospective/protocol studies in which only aggregate data (e.g., incidences of TB in a certain region) are analysed, the Ethical Approval by an appropriate Committee is usually not required, as the data cannot be traced back to specific patients.

Acknowledgements
Within this section, list those contributors who have not met the authorship criteria.

Funding
Authors should describe in the “Funding” section, at the end of the manuscript, all funding sources (e.g. full name of funding organizations, grant numbers). The role of the sponsor, if any, in the study design, in the acquisition analysis and interpretation of data, in drafting the manuscript should be briefly described. If the sponsor has not been specifically involved in the research this should be stated.

Conflicts of interest
Authors must fully disclose any existing or potential conflicts of interest of a financial, personal or any other nature that could affect or bias their research. If applicable, authors are also requested to describe the role of the finding source(s) in the study design, data acquisition, analysis and interpretation, and writing of the manuscript. No potential conflicts of interest must also be explicitly stated.

Template to prepare the manuscript

Before you prepare your manuscript, download the “template” and use that as a starting point for your manuscript.
If you already have prepared your paper, please use “copy - paste special - unformatted text” to enter your text in the “template”. Please prepare a complete manuscript in the Word “template” and save it in .doc(x).
Upload all figures in separate files.
Further instructions are available on the “template” and are also indicated below.

Authorship Statement Form

The corresponding author must fill in and sign the Authorship Statement Form and upload it in the submission process.
Paper copies of manuscripts will not be accepted.
After submission, you will receive a confirmation of receipt of your manuscript via OJS. You can also check the status of your manuscript on OJS. The editorial staff will inform you via OJS once a decision has been made.

Manuscript format

General instructions

PRRS publishes three issues a year, two Regular and one Special, and deals with all topics related to reconstructive and regenerative & Aesthetic plastic surgery, distributed into 9 sections:

• Breast Oncology (Breast cancer, Mastectomy, Breast-conserving therapy for breast cancer, Genetic in breast cancer, Radiation therapy, Surgical strategies for breast cancer risk reduction)
• Breast Reconstruction (Autologous Breast Reconstruction, Implant-based Breast Reconstruction, Oncoplastic Surgery, Congenital breast deformities, Lymphedema and lymph node transplantation, New technologies for breast surgery, Oncologic considerations associated with breast reconstruction)
• Aesthetic (Face, Liposuction, Botox/fillers, Laser, Keloids, Body contouring, Genital surgery, Rhinoplasty, Periorbital Surgery)
• Regenerative (Fat transfer, Platelet rich plasma (PRP), Wound healing, Stem cell biology, Vascular biology, Tissue engineering)
• Reconstructive (Upper Extremity, Lower Extremity, Trunk, Burns)
• Reconstructive Head and Neck (Oral Cavity, Tongue, Mandible, Maxilla, Orbital Reconstruction, Facial Reconstruction, Scalp Reconstruction)
• Hand/Peripheral Nerve (Congenital, Carpal tunnel, Dupuytren’s disease, Fractures, Nerve graft, Tendons)
• Craniofacial/Pediatric (Cleft lip palate, Atrophy/hypoplasia conditions, Fractures, Maxillofacial surgery, Microtia, Craniosynostosis)
• Research (Deep venous Thrombosis, Tissue allotransplantation, Ischemia/reperfusion, Neurophysiology, Biomaterials, Medicolegal, Migraines, Anatomy, Antibiotic and infectious diseases, Economic considerations)

When submitting your manuscript, please follow the instructions relevant to the applicable article category. Your manuscript will be returned to you if it does not meet these criteria.
Please prepare a complete manuscript in the Word “template” and save it in .doc(x).
Do not format the text in any way (avoid styles, borders, shading...); use only character styles such as italics, bold, underlined, super and subscript.
Do not send the text in PDF.
Notes to the text, indicated by asterisks or similar symbols, should appear at the bottom of the relevant page.

Text should be arranged as follows:

• A concise and informative Title not exceeding 100 characters including spaces (subtitles should be avoided).
• Running title not exceeding 50 characters including spaces.
• The authors’ full first names and surnames.
• Academic degrees for authors (maximum of three).
• Name and address of the Institute or Institutes where the work was carried out; if the authors are affiliated with different Institutes, the first author and any others from the same Institute should be indicated with 1 or a symbol (in superscript), the names of the authors from another Institute with 2 or distinctive symbol (in superscript), and so on.
• Name (written in full), surname and address of the corresponding author, including telephone, fax numbers and e-mail address, to whom galley proofs are to be addressed.
• Type of article: categorize the article in one of the following types: Original Article, Clinical trials; Cohort studies; Case-control studies; Case series studies; Systematic review (Meta-analysis); Case reports; Letters.
• Abstract/Summary (no longer than 250 words or 1,700 characters including spaces) should be clear and concise. See specific instructions for article categories for further indications.
• Key words (5 to 10 keywords using Mesh terms for indexing purposes).
• Pages of the manuscript must be numbered (below, right).
• Main body of manuscript: see specific instructions for article categories, below.
• Mathematical terms and formulae, abbreviations, and units of measure should conform to the standards set out in www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf. Use only standard abbreviations. The spelled-out abbreviation followed by the abbreviation in parenthesis should be used on first mention unless the abbreviation is a standard unit of measurement. Drugs should be referred to by their chemical name; the commercial name should be used only when absolutely unavoidable (capitalising the first letter of the product name and giving the name of the pharmaceutical firm manufacturing the drug, town and country).
• Acknowledgements, authors’ contributions and mention of any financial/conflict of interest and/or source of funding (grants or other forms of support) should appear at the end of the paper, before the list of references. Even in case of no financial/conflict of interest or source of funding, please specify it in this section.
• References should be limited to the most essential and relevant (see specific instructions for article categories for number of references requested), published allegedly in the last decade, identified in the text with consecutive numerals (with numbers in superscript) and listed at the end of the manuscript in the order in which they are cited. The format of the references listed should conform with the examples indicated below. For papers with more than three authors only the first three authors must be indicated, followed by “et al.”. Abbreviate journal names as in Index Medicus.
  Please ensure that you include all relevant references to previous articles in the Plastic, Reconstructive & Regenerative Surgery.
  DOI name must be included with each reference (when available).
  Examples of the correct format for citation of references:
  Shapiro AMJ, Lakey JRT, Ryan EA, et al. Islet transplantation in seven patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus using a glucocorticoid-free immunosuppressive regimen. N Engl J Med 2000;343:230-238. https://doi.org/10.1421.234.1
  Books: Smith DW. Recognizable patterns of human malformation. 3rd Ed. Philadelphia: WB Saunders Co. 1982.
  Chapters from books or material from conference proceedings: Krmpotic-Nemanic J, Kostovis I, Rudan P. Aging changes of the form and infrastructure of the external nose and its importance in rhinoplasty. In: Conly J, Dickinson JT, Eds. Plastic and reconstructive surgery of the face and neck. New York, NY: Grune and Stratton 1972. p. 84.

• Tables (see “Specific instructions for article categories” below for number of tables required) should be typewritten and numbered consecutively with Roman numerals at the end of the text after the references. The same data should not be presented twice, both in the text and tables. Each table should have above a brief title and be self-explanatory and be cited in the text (Tab. I, Tab. II, etc.). The table should be supplement the material in the text rather than duplicate. Insert any notes at the end of the table. Explain all the abbreviations.
• Figures (see “Specific instructions for article categories” below for number of figures required) should be uploaded in separate files. Do not include the figures in the text file but cite them only, numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals (Fig. 1, Fig. 2, etc.). Figure legends should be indicated at the end of the text file and allow the reader to understand the figures without reference to the text. All symbols used in figures should be explained. Remove any information that can identify a patient. Deduct from the text 1,250 characters including spaces for figures a quarter of a page in size, 2,500 characters including spaces half a page in size and 5,000 characters including spaces entire page in size. Software and format: preferably send images in .TIFF, .JPEG or .PDF format, resolution at least 300 dpi. Composed figures must be saved as a single file in .JPEG or .TIFF format with a resolution of at least 300 dpi. The individual images within a compound figure must all have the same size (IMPORTANT: dimension for each single file/image is from minimum 800 KB to maximum 2 MB).
• Video files (file extensions accepted will be .wmv and .mp4, formatted with a screen size no smaller than 320 x 240 pixels, no longer than 5 minutes in length. Any video submission more than 30 seconds in length must have English-language subtitles or narration.

Specific instructions for the article categories

Original Article, Clinical trials, Cohort studies, Case-control studies, Case series studies
Text should not exceed a total of 3000 words or 20,000 characters including spaces from the Introduction to the Conflict of Interest Statement. The summary should not exceed 250 words or 1,700 characters and should be structured in: Objective, Methods, Results, Conclusions.
The main text should be structured in:
Introduction: the introduction should put the focus of the manuscript into a broader context, and keep in mind readers who are not experts in the field. The introduction should conclude with a brief statement of the overall aim of the study.
Materials and Methods: this section should provide enough detail to allow full replication of the study by suitably skilled investigators. If the authors prefer, they can subdivide this section in various headings that should be provided in italics. If your study involves human or animal subjects or records of human patients you MUST have obtained ethical approval. Ethical approval or exemption are required for retrospective studies on patients’ records. Please state in the “Ethical consideration” section, at the end of the text whether ethical approval was given, by whom and the relevant Judgement’s reference number).
Results: the results section should provide details of all of the data that are required to support the conclusions of the paper. There should be a brief introduction of each section and end with a summarising sentence of the main findings without discussion. The section may be divided into subsections, each with a concise subheading (in italics). We recommend that the results section be written in the past tense.
Discussion: include a review of the key literature. If there are relevant controversies or disagreements in the field, they should be mentioned so that a non-expert reader can delve into these issues further. The discussion should consider the major conclusions of the work along with some explanation and/or speculation on their significance. How do the conclusions affect the existing assumptions and models in the field? How can future research build on these observations? What are the key experiments that remain? The discussion should be concise with solid arguments.
Conclusions: conclusions and hypotheses should be firmly established/supported by the data presented, and any speculations should be clearly identified as such. No new data should be presented in the discussion.
References have no limit (please ensure that you include all relevant references to previous articles in the Plastic, Reconstructive & Regenerative Surgery).
Tables and/or figures and videos should be limited to 20.

Systematic review (Meta-analysis)
Manuscripts should review topics of contemporary interest and importance. Reviews ideally should address controversial issues by expressing all different points of view. Critical assessments of literature and data sources on important clinical topics in reconstruction and regenerative plastic surgery or on basic research are required. The review should be comprehensive and authoritative as reflected by a contemporary bibliography.
Text should not exceed a total of 50,000 characters including spaces. The abstract should be unstructured and not exceed 2,000 characters. The introduction should outline explicitly the clinical problem and rationale for conducting the review. Review articles should not require a Materials/Methods or Results section. Furthermore, we recommend particularly for meta-analyses a Methods section that specifies the information sources and search strategy, inclusion and exclusion criteria, and potential biases in the review process, and a Results section that describes study selection, characteristics and statistical methods for summarizing data. Discussion should interpret results in light of the total available evidence. The conclusion is to summarize key findings.
References have no limit (please ensure that you include all relevant references to previous articles in the Plastic, Reconstructive & Regenerative Surgery).
Tables and/or figures and videos should be limited to 20.

Case reports
Brief articles, in which clinical original experiences from medical practice are described.
Articles must have a title, an unstructured summary and key words. Text should not exceed a total of 1000 words or 7,000 characters including spaces. Test should conform to the following format: a) introduction; b) description of the case report; c) discussion that should clearly indicate how the reported work fits with the current body of world literature.
References should not exceed 30 (please ensure that you include all relevant references to previous articles in the Plastic, Reconstructive & Regenerative Surgery).
Tables and/or figures and videos should be limited to 5, overall.

Letters
Should be directed to the Editor-in-Chief regarding published material or information of timely interest and particularly if controversy exists. They should be brief and not exceed 5,000 characters including spaces, with no more than 10 references, and only 1 figure and/or table. No summary is required. If the letter is related to a previously published article in PRRS it must be submitted within 6 months of publication. Letters commenting papers are sent to the authors of those papers for a response. The authors are invited to look for recent articles published in PRRS during the last 12 months to check for hot topics of interest in our journal.

After acceptance

Galley proofs will be sent via OJS to the corresponding author for final approval. The authors are required to carefully check the proofs and return them within 3 days of receipt.  If the proofs are not received in time, the authors will have to rely on the Editor's corrections only. The authors are responsible for mistakes that have been overlooked. The date of receipt and the date of acceptance by the Scientific Committee will appear on each publication. The article may be published online first after receipt of the corrected proof.

The Publisher remains at the complete disposal of those with rights whom it was impossible to contact, and for any omissions.