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Overview of Sections and Article Types

Article Type Editor Recommendations 
Case report
  • 100-200 word unstructured abstract
  • Insights: Following the abstract, provide a one-sentence statement of clinical or biologic insight.
  • 500-1,500 words main text
  • 1-2 tables and/or figures
  • 10 references
Commentary
  • 100-200-word abstract
  • 1,000-1,500 words main text
  • Up to 1 figure and/or table
  • Up to 10 references
Hypothesis
  • 100-200-word abstract
  • 500-1500 words main text
  • Up to 2 figure and/or table
  • Up to 10 references
Position article and guidelines
  • 250-350-word abstract
  • up to 8,000 words main text
  • 1-4 figures and/or tables
  • up to 120 references
Original research
  • 250-350-word structured abstract
  • 4,000-5,000 words main text
  • 5-7 tables and/or figures (Please keep the number of panels per figure to a minimum)
  • 50 references
Review
  • 250-350-word abstract
  • 4,000-5,000 words main text
  • 1-4 figures and/or tables (Please keep the number of panels per figure to a minimum)
  • 50-100 references
Short report
  • 250-350-word abstract
  • 1,500-2,500 words main text
  • 1-4 tables and/or figures
  • 25 references
Section Description
Basic Tumor Immunology
    Tumor antigens, innate and adaptive anti-tumor immune mechanisms, immune regulation, immune response, cancer and inflammation, preclinical models, chemotherapy and radiotherapy interactions/combinations of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and other combination treatments with the anti-tumor immune response.
Case Reports      JITC welcomes Case Reports that include the following:
  • Novel immunotherapies, including early clinical data describing initial clinical experiences in one to three (1-3) patients
  • Topics covering the clinical introduction and application of novel immunotherapies, unexpected or unusual presentations of clinical responses to immunotherapies, new associations or variations in disease progression and/or response to immunotherapies, and unreported or unusual side effects or adverse interactions involving new (not PD-(L)1 and/or CTLA-4) checkpoints or cellular therapies
  • Clinical and/or translational results providing insight for mechanisms of response and/or toxicity
  • Newly emerging and/or clinically important side effects involving immunotherapy or cellular therapies
  • JITC will not consider submissions with the following:
  • Established toxicities or responses
  • Clinical descriptions that lack mechanistic investigations
  • Preventive or therapeutic interventions, as these generally require stronger evidence
    Case reports should include relevant positive and negative findings from history, examination and translational investigation. They should include experimental figures and clinical photographs, the latter of which must be accompanied by written consent to publish from the patient(s). They should also include an up-to-date discussion of all previous cases in the field and relate to ongoing or finished clinical trials.
Clinical/Translational Cancer Immunotherapy
    Clinical trials: prospective studies including first-in-man clinical trials, phase II/III clinical studies, and immune monitoring investigations. Small, single institution-based retrospective reports are discouraged.
    Preclinical studies: studies that lead to mechanistic understanding or novel development of agents and combination therapies directly relevant to human immunotherapy.
Commentary/Editorials
    Reaction to and/or perspectives on significant events in the field of cancer immunotherapy as pertains to basic science. May address a critical challenge; elaborate on, or extend a conversation of, a focal article; provide an application of a hypothetical perspective; or provide expert insight on a particular controversy in the field.
Guidelines and Consensus Statements
    This section highlights current or evolving clinical practice guidelines and consensus statements, and provides guidance to enhance clinical decision making in the field of cancer immunotherapy.
Immune Cell Therapies and Immune Cell Engineering
    Immune cell therapies and cell engineering approaches, new targets, novel functionalities, clinical trial results, correlative studies in patients who have received cell-based therapies, novel engineering strategies (molecular switches, conditional expression, logic gating), gene-edited cells to knock out or knock in novel functions, synthetic gene circuits. Includes pre-clinical animal modeling (small and large) and clinical trials.
Immunotherapy Biomarkers
    This section focuses on the discovery, development and/or clinical significance of biomarkers for immunomodulatory anti-cancer treatments. This includes biomarkers for diagnostic, prognostic, predictive and pharmacodynamic purposes measured using diverse strategies including, but not limited to, genomic or gene expression,serological analyses, cell-based or single-cell studies, in situ/localized tissue-based protein imaging, high content/multiparametric molecular platforms and imaging studies conducted in model systems, retrospective collections and clinical trials.This section also welcomes studies reporting novel methods, technologies or computational approaches to interrogate the anti-tumor immune response that have the potential to advance the field. Manuscripts will be prioritized for peer review and publication on the basis of innovation/novelty of the biomarker-oriented research, adequate validation, clinical relevance and technological novelty. Special emphasis is assigned to: 1) Rigorous analytical validation of assays used (e.g. antibodies, mRNA probes, DNA sequences, molecular biosensors and modified reagents); 2) Reproducibility of findings in multiple populations/datasets/models; and 3) Use of appropriate statistics to account for cases stratification (e.g. cut-point selection), data overfitting and multiple hypothesis testing (e.g. adjustment of significance thresholds, P-values or other strategies to reduce type I error).
Oncolytic and Local Immunotherapy
    This section focuses on the role of therapeutic agents designed for targeting tumor cells and/or the tumor microenvironment. This includes oncolytic viruses, microbial agents, innate immune agonists, direct and systemically delivered proteins and DNA/RNA products that act within established tumors. Research describing the characterization and basic biology of oncolytic agents and novel delivery systems are encouraged. An emphasis on how novel intra-tumoral directed agents modulate local and systemic host innate and adaptive anti-tumor immunity are of particular interest. In addition, the section welcomes translational and clinical investigation involving new oncolytic immunotherapy agents or those that include an oncolytic approach as part of combination therapeutic regimens.
Reviews Reviews are generally directly commissioned by JITC editors. These are fact/data-driven works that cumulate several articles of importance on a particular subject or research area in a review format with the goal of providing the “state of the art” in the field. Topics include recent major advances and discoveries, significant gaps in the research, current debates, and/or ideas of where research might go next written by authors who are leading contributors in the field. Submissions should offer new insights to advance the field forward. We do not accept unsolicited submissions for this type of article, but potential authors may send presubmission inquiries addressed to the section editors at info.jitc@bmj.com for further consideration by JITC editorial leadership. Research reviews that systematically synthesise evidence (e.g. Systematic reviews, Meta-analysis, Scoping reviews, Mixed methods reviews, etc) are classified by the journal as Original research and must be submitted as such to the appropriate section.