JOURNAL OF ORGAN TRANSPLANTATIONISSN 2576-9359OPEN ACCESSPEER REVIEWED
Aims and Scope
The journal publishes peer-reviewed research on the transplantation of human organs and tissues — donation and procurement, organ preservation, transplant immunology, surgical and perioperative practice, graft assessment and surveillance, and the long-term outcomes of recipients and living donors — across organ types and across experimental, clinical and ethical inquiry.
Transplantation is one subject studied by many disciplines at once. Surgery, immunology, pharmacology, pathology, infectious disease, nephrology, hepatology, cardiology, pulmonology, ethics, law and health-services research all meet in it, and work from any of them belongs here when transplantation is what it is about.
Where a transplant study attaches
A transplant is a sequence: an organ is offered, recovered, held, implanted, accepted or resisted, and then lived with. Research enters that sequence at any point, and each point below is fully in scope in its own right. The order follows the path a graft takes.
Donation and the donor
Living and deceased donation: donor evaluation and selection, donor safety and long-term donor outcomes, consent and authorization, organ recovery and procurement technique, donor management, and the pathways that bring an organ to a recipient.
The graft between bodies
The interval in which viability is held: static cold storage and machine perfusion, ischemia and reperfusion injury, preservation solutions and temperature strategies, viability assessment and organ reconditioning, and the decisions that determine whether an organ is used.
Implantation and the perioperative period
Surgical technique and its variations, anesthesia and intra-operative physiology, hemodynamic and fluid management, immediate and delayed graft function, and the complications of the first days after transplantation.
The immune relationship
Histocompatibility, antibody and the innate and adaptive response to a graft; acute and chronic rejection; tolerance and its induction; immunosuppressive regimens and their pharmacology and toxicity; immune monitoring, biomarkers and the interpretation of graft biopsies.
Life with a graft
Surveillance and diagnosis after transplantation, infection and malignancy, cardiovascular and metabolic comorbidity, graft and patient survival, adherence, psychosocial outcomes and quality of life, pediatric transplantation, pregnancy after transplantation, and re-transplantation.
The system around the transplant
Allocation and waiting-list policy, registry and health-services research, equity of access, the ethics and law of donation and transplantation, the economics of transplant care, and the organization of transplant services.
Organ, tissue and cell grafts
Every attachment point above applies across the graft types the title covers. The journal's published record is currently strongest in kidney transplantation, which reflects what has been submitted so far; every graft type below is equally welcome, and these lists are examples rather than a closed set.
SOLID ORGANS
Kidney · liver · heart · lung · pancreas · intestine · uterus · combined and multi-organ grafts.
TISSUE AND CELL GRAFTS
Hematopoietic stem cells · pancreatic islets · cornea and ocular tissue · skin, bone and musculoskeletal tissue · vascularized composite allografts.
DEVELOPING APPROACHES
Xenotransplantation · organ bioengineering and scaffolds · machine perfusion and organ reconditioning · regenerative and cell-based approaches · gene-modified grafts.
How scope is applied
A manuscript is in scope when transplantation is among the things the work actually investigates — the graft, the donor, the recipient, or the system that connects them.
SCOPE AND EVIDENCE ARE ASSESSED SEPARATELY
Scope decides whether a question belongs in this journal. What a manuscript is able to conclude is a separate judgment, made against the design and the data actually presented. A study is in scope whether it reports a mechanism, a first observation, a null result or a settled effect, and the claims it makes are then held to the evidence it offers.
Studies in which a kidney, liver, heart, lung, pancreas or intestine is considered apart from transplantation are usually better served by a specialty journal in that field, and the editorial office can suggest one.
FORMS OF WORK THAT BELONG HERE
- LABORATORY
- Mechanistic, immunological and experimental-model studies.
- CLINICAL
- Trials, cohorts, case series and single-center experience.
- DIAGNOSTIC
- Imaging, histology, assay and biomarker evaluation.
- POPULATION
- Registry, epidemiological and health-services analyses.
- METHODOLOGICAL
- Measurement, statistical and reporting research.
- ETHICAL AND LEGAL
- Normative, policy and qualitative analysis of donation, allocation and consent.
Review, decisions and the ways in
HOW MANUSCRIPTS ARE ASSESSED
All submissions undergo initial editorial screening. Manuscripts that meet the journal’s scope and minimum requirements proceed to independent peer review.
Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request.
Manuscripts that proceed to external peer review are normally evaluated by at least two independent subject-matter experts.
Editorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal. Decisions are independent of fees, services, memberships and editorial or reviewing roles.
The journal publishes original research and research articles; review articles, systematic reviews and meta-analyses; short communications and brief reports; case reports and case series; editorials, commentaries, perspectives and opinions; letters to the editor; technical notes and methodology papers; and protocols. Instructions for Authors carries the preparation requirements for each.
SUBMISSION ROUTES
- PRIMARY ROUTEManuscriptZone
- ALTERNATIVE ROUTESimple manuscript submission form
- ASSISTED ROUTEEditorial email — [email protected]
Authors must use only one submission route for the same manuscript.
Authors who are unsure whether a subject fits are welcome to describe it to the editorial office before preparing a full manuscript.