About Head & Neck Oncology

What is Head & Neck Oncology?

Head & Neck Oncology, the official journal of the Head & Neck Optical Diagnostics Society, is an open access, peer-reviewed online journal that encompasses all aspects of clinical practice, basic and translational research on the aetiology, pathophysiology, diagnosis, assessment, management, follow-up and prognosis of patients with head and neck tumours.

Topical areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Aetiopathogenesis, epidemiology, immunology and biology of head and neck tumors.
• Assessment of head and neck tumours, e.g. clinical features, diagnosis, staging, advanced imaging.
• Medical, surgical and radiation oncology, e.g. chemotherapy, radiotherapy, immunotherapy, photodynamic therapy, laser therapy.
• The role of medical and dental practitioners in the management of head and neck tumours.
• The role of non-medical allied healthcare professionals in the management of head and neck tumours.
• Palliative care.
• Translational innovations and methodology in the management of head and neck tumours.
• Hypotheses and experimental proofs in the management of head and neck tumours.
• Ethics, consent and medico-legal issues related to head and neck tumours.

Head & Neck Oncology focuses on evidence-based and hypothesis-driven research, and aims to provide researchers and clinicians in the field with practical updates at the edge of translational research.

Content overview

Head & Neck Oncology considers the following types of articles:

Research: reports of data from original research.
Reviews: comprehensive, authoritative, descriptions of any subject within the journal's scope. Reviews can cover any topical themes such as basic science and clinical reviews, ethics, pro/con debates, equipment reviews and thematic series to highlight specific topics in the field.
Book reviews: short summaries of the strengths and weaknesses of a book. They should evaluate its overall usefulness to the intended audience.
Case reports: reports of clinical cases that can be educational, describe a diagnostic or therapeutic dilemma, suggest an association, or present an important adverse reaction. All case report articles should indicate that informed consent to publish the information was granted from the patients or their guardians.
Commentaries: short, focused and opinionated articles on any subject within the scope of the journal. These articles are usually related to a contemporary issue, such as recent research findings, and are often written by opinion leaders invited by the Editors-in-Chief.
Letters to the Editor: brief laboratory and clinical studies should be submitted in this format. These can also take other forms: a substantial re-analysis of a previously published article, or a substantial response to such a re-analysis from the authors of the original publication, or an article that may not cover 'standard research' but that may be relevant to readers.
Meeting reports: a short description of a conference that the author has attended, which focuses on the key developments presented and discussed at the meeting.

Peer review policy

Head & Neck Oncology operates a closed peer-review system. All submitted manuscripts will be screened by one of the Editors-in-Chief and appropriate manuscripts will be sent for peer review. Decisions on acceptance or rejection will be based on the reports of three reviewers and where conflicting reports arise, final decisions will be made by the Editors-in-Chief.

Edited by Adel El-Naggar, Colin Hopper, Waseem Jerjes and Tahwinder Upile, Head & Neck Oncology is supported by an expert Editorial Board.

Publishing in Head & Neck Oncology

All articles are listed in PubMed immediately upon acceptance (after peer review), and are covered by PubMed Central, MEDLINE and CAS.

Articles in Head & Neck Oncology should be cited in the same way as articles in a traditional journal. However, because articles in this journal are not printed, they do not have page numbers. Instead, they have a unique article number.

The following citation:

Head Neck Oncol 2004, 2:1

refers to article 1 from volume 2 of the journal.

As an online journal, Head & Neck Oncology does not have issue numbers. Each volume corresponds to a calendar year.

To keep up to date with the latest articles from Head & Neck Oncology, why not register to receive alerts? Registration also enables you to customise your subject areas of interest, store your searches, and submit your manuscripts.

Submission of manuscripts

Manuscripts should be submitted electronically to Head & Neck Oncology using the online submission system. Full details of how to submit a manuscript are given in the instructions for authors.

General journal policies

Head & Neck Oncology is published by BioMed Central, part of Springer Science+Business Media. BioMed Central is committed to ensuring peer-reviewed biomedical research is open access. That means it is freely and universally accessible online, it is archived in at least one internationally recognised free access repository, and its authors retain copyright, allowing anyone to reproduce or disseminate articles, according to the BioMed Central copyright and licence agreement. Head & Neck Oncology however, has taken this further by making all its content open access.

Head & Neck Oncology's articles are archived in PubMed Central, the US National Library of Medicine's full-text repository of life science literature, and also at INIST in France and in e-Depot, the National Library of the Netherlands' digital archive of all electronic publications. The journal is also participating in the British Library's e-journals pilot project, and plans to deposit copies of all articles with the British Library.

Head & Neck Oncology is able to deliver summaries of frequently updated content via Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds. These are accessible via the orange "XML" button at the top of the list of recent articles or the list of most accessed articles. For more information about RSS feeds see our publisher's website.

For further information about general policies please see the instructions for authors.