Haematologica/The Hematology Journal 2007

As an official organ of the European Hematology Association (EHA), Haematologica/The Hematology Journal has continued to grow in the past two years (Figure 1). The number of manuscripts submitted is constantly increasing and the peer-review process has become progressively more selective, as the journal is now accepting fewer than one third of the papers it receives.

Figure 1.Time course of Haematologica’s Impact Factor over the last 15 years. The total number of pages published is also reported.

Our readers will note a few changes in the 2007 journal. During the last two years, the section This Month in the Journal became increasingly popular. Unfortunately, these summaries were initially included in PubMed as supplied by us (the reader might see the December 2006 summaries1–6 in www.pubmed.govfor a while) but are later deleted from PubMed once the NLMIndexing staff has determined that these citations are non-indexable material. Since we want to publish only indexable papers, we have decided to abolish This Month in the Journal section. At the same time, we will try to increase the number of editorials and perspective articles.

The abstract represents a crucial part of original articles. As underlined by the ICMJE (www.icmje.org), “abstracts are the only substantive portion of the article indexed in many electronic databases, and the only portion many readers read”. Therefore, a new abstract layout has been designed to help readers (see original articles in this issue). In addition, we invite authors to give careful consideration to the ICMJE suggestions concerning abstract preparation: “The abstract should provide the context or background for the study and should state the study’s purposes, 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”.

Finally, we would like to remind authors of our policy concerning the registration of clinical trials7,8 and conflict of interest (www.haematologica.org/policy.html). As regards clinical trials that began before July 1, 2005, Haematologica/The Hematology Journal will only consider publishing the results of such trials if they were adequately registered before submission to the journal. As regards trials that began after July 1, 2005, the journal will as a rule consider such trials only if registration occurred before the first patient was enrolled.With respect to competing interests, financial relationships (such as employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony) are the most likely to undermine the credibility of the journal, the authors, and science itself. These relationships should, therefore, be disclosed. Detailed information for authors is available on the journal’s website (http://www.haematologica.org/policies/conflicts/authors.pdf).

The Editors