About the journal
Journal of Colon And Rectal Cancer
The journal exists to publish research on cancers of the colon and rectum, and to keep that work openly available to the clinicians and scientists who use it.
- Publisher
- Open Access Pub
- ISSN
- 2471-7061
- Access
- Open access, CC BY 4.0
- Review
- Independent peer review
Purpose
A single disease, followed the whole way
Colorectal cancer is studied in pieces. A molecular biologist works on the mutations that start a tumor; a screening program works on who should be tested and when; a surgeon works on the operation; an epidemiologist works on what happens to patients afterward. These are separate literatures, and they are often read separately.
The Journal of Colon And Rectal Cancer publishes across that whole length. Its purpose is to hold the biology, the detection, the treatment and the outcome of one disease in a single peer-reviewed record, so that work at one point on the sequence is visible to the people working at another.
Work published here is meant to be read by someone who will act on it, and read by someone studying the same problem from the other end.
Access and reuse
Research is published open access under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Readers may use and build on an article without a subscription, provided the authors and the source are credited.
Full scope
The Aims and Scope page states the boundary the journal applies when it judges whether a manuscript belongs here.
Scientific remit
The breadth the journal covers
The journal's remit is the scientific span of cancers of the colon and rectum. It is defined by the subject, not by the method: laboratory, clinical, epidemiological and methodological work are all in scope where the question concerns colorectal malignancy.
- Tumor biology and genetics
- Molecular pathways and driver mutations, the tumor microenvironment, mechanisms of metastasis, hereditary syndromes, and biomarker discovery and validation.
- Prevention and screening
- Colonoscopy quality and outcomes, non-invasive and stool-based screening methods, surveillance in Lynch syndrome and other high-risk groups, and chemoprevention.
- Diagnosis and staging
- Pathology, imaging and endoscopic assessment, molecular classification, liquid biopsy and circulating tumor DNA, and the staging decisions that follow from them.
- Surgical oncology
- Minimally invasive and robotic colorectal surgery, total mesorectal excision, organ-preservation strategies, and enhanced recovery protocols.
- Systemic and radiation therapy
- Chemotherapy regimens, targeted therapy and immunotherapy, neoadjuvant and adjuvant strategies, radiotherapy, and mechanisms of treatment resistance.
- Survivorship and population outcomes
- Survival and recurrence, quality of life after treatment, long-term follow-up, health disparities in colorectal cancer care, and population-level outcomes research.
- Methods and translational research
- Study design, measurement and statistical methodology, model systems, and work that carries a laboratory finding toward clinical evaluation or a clinical observation back to the bench.
The journal's published record illustrates this remit; it does not mark its edge. A sound study on a question the archive has not yet covered is eligible on the same terms as one that extends an existing line of work.
Readership
Who the journal is for
The journal serves the people who treat colorectal cancer and the people who study it, and it is written by both.
Clinicians
Colorectal and general surgeons, medical and radiation oncologists, gastroenterologists, pathologists and radiologists who need the evidence behind a decision they are about to make.
Researchers
Molecular and translational scientists, epidemiologists, and health-services and outcomes researchers working on colorectal malignancy and the systems that treat it.
Programs and trainees
Those running screening, surveillance and survivorship programs, and clinicians and scientists entering colorectal oncology who need a route into its current literature.
Editorial responsibility
How a publication decision is reached
Publication rests on an editorial judgment made by named people under stated rules. The rules below apply to every manuscript the journal receives.
Screening and review
All submissions undergo initial editorial screening. Manuscripts that meet the journal's scope and minimum requirements proceed to independent peer review.
Manuscripts that proceed to external peer review are normally evaluated by at least two independent subject-matter experts.
Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request.
The basis of a decision
Editorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal.
Decisions remain independent of fees, membership, editorial roles and paid services. Editors recuse themselves from decisions on their own submissions; those manuscripts are handled independently.
The editors accountable for these decisions are listed, with their affiliations, on the Editorial Board page.
Next
Where the detail is
The complete scope statement for the journal.
The editors who handle submissions to the journal.
The journal's published editorial and ethics policies.
Authors preparing a manuscript should start with the Instructions for Authors; the approved submission routes are set out in full on the Submit Paper page.