Aims & Scope
Acta Oncologica is a journal for the clinical oncologist and accepts articles within all fields of clinical cancer research. Articles on tumour pathology, experimental oncology, radiobiology, cancer epidemiology and medical radio physics are also welcome, especially if they have a clinical aim or interest. Scientific articles on cancer nursing and psychological or social aspects of cancer are also welcomed. Extensive material may be published as Supplements, for which special conditions apply.

Preparing for Submission
Submitted manuscripts should be arranged according to the rules stated in "Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals" Ann Intern Med 1997; 126: 36-47, or JAMA 1997; 277: 927-34. The full document is available at http://www.icmje.org.

When submitting a paper, the author should always make a full statement to the editor about all submissions and previous reports that might be regarded as redundant or duplicate publication of the same or very similar work.

Conflict of interest and funding
Authors are responsible for recognising and disclosing financial and other conflicts of interest that might bias their work. They should acknowledge in the manuscript all financial support for the work and other financial or personal connections to the work.

Statistic validity
Statistical methods should be clearly identified and described in sufficient details for knowledgeable reader to reproduce the analysis if he or she had access to the raw data. The choice of method should be motivated. It should be stated whether p-values are from one-or two-sided tests. The journal encourages the reporting of 95% confidence intervals rather than simple p-values whenever relevant. A special concern is the statistical power of analyses showing that a variable meter is not significantly associated with the outcome despite previous reports of a significant association. Multivariate analyses should be reported with a clear indication of the criteria for selection of variables to be included in the model, and how these variables were represented (scored) in the model.

Ethics and consent
When reporting experiments on human subjects, indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 1983. Do not use patients' names, initials, or hospital numbers, especially in illustrative material. Papers including animal experiments or clinical trials must be accompanied by an approval by the local ethics committee. Please give date of issue and registration number.

Identifying information should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and pedigrees, unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Informed consent for this purpose requires that the patient be shown the manuscript to be published.

Online Submission
Acta Oncologica Manuscript Central, the web-based manuscript submission and handling system is now available at: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/sonc
Please submit all manuscripts online via the Acta Oncologica Manuscript Central site. Here, new users should first create an account to obtain the user ID and password. Once you are logged in, you can submit manuscripts via your "Author center". Please note, when entering the details of the co-authors in the system, please also note their e-mail addresses, as all authors will be given an account and can thereby follow the review process online.

Your submission will be acknowledged by an e-mail which includes the Manuscript ID number for your paper. Remember to refer to this number in the subject line of any correspondence with the Editorial Office. You can view of the status of your manuscript via your author center.

Editorial office
Acta Oncologica
Attn: Lena Andreasson-Haddad
Box 25
SE-171 11 Solna, Sweden
Tel.: +46 (0)8 545 441 50
Fax.: +46 (0)8 31 82 04
E-mail: lena.andreasson-haddad@karolinska.se

Decisions on publication are based on the opinions of at least two reviewers. The manuscripts are subject to editorial revision. Copyright resides with Acta Oncologica.

Manuscript Layout
Please use these simple guidelines when preparing your manuscript:

1. Please be consistent. The same elements should be keyed in exactly the same way throughout the manuscript
2. Do not break words at the end of lines. Use a hyphen only to hyphenate compound words.
3. Enter only one space after the full-stop at the end of a sentence.
4. When emphasizing words please use the italic feature of your word processor software.
5. Do not justify your text; use a ragged right-hand margin.
6. Use a double hyphen (--) to indicate a dash in text.
7. Do not use the lowercase l for 1 (one) or the uppercase O for 0 (zero).
8. The space bar should only be used as a word separator. Use TAB when identifying paragraphs or separating columns in tables.

Submit manuscripts as a Word-file and figures and/or illustrations separately as TIFF or EPS
format files.

Layout
Manuscripts should be written in English (consistently English or American style) and typed on one side of the paper only with double spacing throughout the article (at least 1 cm between the lines) and margins of at least 4 cm on the left side and at the top.

Title page
The title page should carry the title of the article, first name, middle initial, and last name of each author with institutional affiliation, name and address of author responsible for correspondence, and a short running title.

Abstract
Abstract should not exceed 300 words and should be entered both in the abstract text box in
Manuscript Central as well as presented within the manuscript text file. Abstracts should be structured and arranged according to the same headings that are used in the text; Background, Material and Methods, Results and Discussion. An abstract is required for all manuscript types, except for 'Letters to the Editor' and other types of 'Correspondence'.

Text
The text should, as a rule, be divided into the sections Introduction, Material and Methods, Results,and Discussion. Abbreviations, which are not generally accepted, should be spelled out when first used in text. Uncommon abbreviations and clinical jargon should be avoided. Footnotes are not accepted. The International System of Units (SI) should be used.

Language

Manuscripts should be written in clear and concise scientific English.It is the responsibility of the authors to ensure the quality of the language for submitted articles. Colloquial English may not be sufficient and is not necessarily the same as scientific English, for which professional services may be needed. A brief language overview will be made for articles accepted for publication, but no major changes are accepted at that stage.

References
The Vancouver system must be applied. No more than 25 references are accepted. Number the references consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. Identify references in the text by Arabic numerals (in square brackets). Papers accepted but not yet published should be designated as (in press). Information from papers in manuscript but not yet accepted should be cited in the text as 'unpublished observation(s)' or 'personal communication'.

Abbreviations of journal titles; please consult the List of Journals Indexed in Index Medicus, published annually as a list in the January issue of Index Medicus, also accessible at www.nlm.nih.gov

References include name(s) of author(s) followed by initial(s), full title of the article, name of the journal, year of publication, volume number and number of first and last page. Reference to books should indicate author(s), title of chapter, book title, name of editor(s), place, publisher, year of publication, and number of first and last page. If there are six or less authors, state all in the reference list. If there are more than six, take the first six and use et al. for additional authors.

Examples:
[Journal article] Clough KB, Goffinet F, Labib A, Renoleau C, Campana F, De la Rochefondiere A, et al. Laparoscopic unilateral ovarian transposition prior to irradiation. Prospective study of 20 cases. Cancer 1996; 77: 2638-45.

[Article not in English] Ellingsen AE, Wilhelmsen I. Sykdomsangst blant medisin- og jusstudenter. Tidsskr Nor Laegeforen. 2002;122(8):785-7.

[Book] Murray PR, Rosenthal KS, Kobayashi GS, Pfaller MA. Medical microbiology. 4th ed. St. Louis: Mosby; 2002.

For further guidance, please turn to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors Uniform Requirements at URL: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html

Tables
Type each table double-spaced on a separate sheet. Do not submit tables as photographs. Supply a brief title for each table. Give each column a short or abbreviated heading. Place explanatory matter in notes under the table, not in the heading.

Illustrations
Submit illustrations as separate files in TIFF or EPS format, and stored with an image resolution of at least 300 DPI (line figures preferably higher). Figure number should be indicated in the file name. Figure legends should be provided at the last page of the main text. Letters and numerals should be large enough to allow reduction of illustrations to one-column width (8 cm).

Please indicate in Manuscript Central which of the figure images that you wish to print in colour in the journal, and acknowledge the printing costs for colour figures. The current rate is 400/$800/€550 for the first printed page and 200/$400/€275 for the second and subsequent printed pages of the article. This cost has to be bourne by the author(s).

Correspondence, Letters and Short Communications
Depending upon its content a contribution to this section can be written as a Letter to the Editor without subheadings or abstract (though an abstract still has to be noted in Manuscript Central). Discussion and References must be strictly limited, tables and illustrations, when necessary, to be kept at a minimum and be possible to print within one single-column width. When submitting a letter or correspondence through Manuscript Central, please note 'N/A' in the box designated for the abstract text.

Author proofs - final approval

Authors will be notified via e-mail when a manuscript is ready for final approval before publication. This e-mail provides instructions on how to log on to the online author service, where the final version of the manuscript can be downloaded as a printer ready PDF file.

Copyright