Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle

Author Guidelines

Aims and Scope

The Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle is an open access, peer-reviewed international journal dedicated to publishing materials that are related to cachexia and sarcopenia, as well as to body composition and its physiological and pathophysiological changes during the lifespan and in response to different illnesses from all fields of the life sciences.

The term cachexia describes involuntary weight loss that is observed in the course of many chronic diseases, and is one of the most debilitating and life-threatening aspects of various illnesses at advanced stages. Cachexia, wasting syndromes and sarcopenia are becoming a concerning challenge for an increasing number of patients, their relatives and the medical teams caring for them. The Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle aims to offer a reliable resource to all professionals who are interested in related research or who are involved in the clinical care of affected patients, for example those suffering from AIDS, cancer, chronic heart failure, chronic lung disease, liver cirrhosis, chronic kidney failure, rheumatoid arthritis, or sepsis.

Alterations in body composition, particularly those affecting skeletal muscle, are key elements in the ageing process and in the pathophysiology of several chronic illnesses. Sarcopenia, i.e. loss of functional muscle mass without weight loss, is part of the ageing process and may play a role in reduced physical performance, falls, and disability. Studies on the functional importance of fat tissue and mechanisms leading to lipolysis are equally of interest as are studies on mechanisms of muscle wasting.

The pathophysiology of cachexia involves a complex interaction between disease and body. Consequently, numerous potential therapeutic approaches are being considered and developed. Diagnostic and assessment approaches also involve researchers and clinicians seeking better screening and evaluation options and enhanced biomarkers through validated complementary investigations. This makes the Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle a reliable resource of information for physicians, biochemists, biologists, dieticians, pharmacologists, and students dealing with cachexia, wasting and sarcopenia in various diseases.

Pre-submission

Pre-submission Resources

Author Services
Prior to submission, we encourage you to browse the ‘Author Resources’ section of the Wiley Author Services website: http://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/author.asp.
This site includes useful information on copyright matters, ethics, electronic artwork guidelines, and how to optimise your article for discovery by search engines.

Article Preparation Support
Wiley Editing Services offers expert help with English Language Editing, as well as translation, manuscript formatting, figure illustration, figure formatting, and graphical abstract design – so you can submit your manuscript with confidence.
Also, check out our resources for Preparing Your Article for general guidance about writing and preparing your manuscript.

Manuscript Categories and Criteria

The Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle accepts the following categories of articles:

Original Articles
These should not exceed 4500 words (excluding abstract, references, tables and figures) and may include up to 8 figures (max of 6 sub-sections per figure) and/or tables and up to 40 references. Additional figures, tables and references should be submitted as supplement.
The article should be divided into the following sections: Title page, Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgements (funding, conflict of interest, ethical guidelines statement).
The abstract of Original Articles should be divided into the sections Background, Methods, Results, Conclusions and should not exceed 400 words. Important note: the abstract needs to be data rich and contain all main study results. Descriptive results abstracts are not acceptable. For clinical trial submissions, see extra comments.
Reporting on Clinical Trials

• Typically results should be presented according to intention-to-treat (for efficacy). Reporting on safety data and trials using non-inferiority designs may use other methodology.
• Biostatistical approaches should be described and the responsible biostatistician should be identified. Note: a clinical trial can only have one primary efficacy endpoint, unless alpha-splitting or a Hochberg procedure (or similar approaches) are used. Please submit a copy of the statistical analysis plan in English
• Submit the trial protocol in an English translation as appendix. 
• Consider working the trial statistician together with an experienced trialist to bring the reporting of the study to highest standards.
• The trial must have been registered before its start. Please provide registration details (i.e. the NCT number etc). 

Studies describing survival rates and prognostic associations, must provide
1) in the abstract and 2) in the methods or results section (as appropriate) the number of events observed in the overall cohort, as well as the 1 year mortality rate (with 95%CI) and, if appropriate, also the 5 year mortality rate (with 95%CI) and/or the 3 month mortality rate (with 95%CI). This will serve to assess the power of the study. Novel prognostic markers should be studied in cohorts with at least 60-100 events. Novel prognostic scores should be studied in cohorts with at least 150-200 events. Validation of prognostic factors in a second cohort is strongly recommended to independently validate suggested best cut-offs that are based on the first (derivation) cohort results.

Reporting on Clinical Trials
Typically results should be presented according to intention-to-treat (for efficacy). Reporting on safety data and trials using non-inferiority designs may use other methodology.

Biostatistical approaches should be described and the responsible biostatistician should be identified. Note: a clinical trial can only have one primary efficacy endpoint, unless alpha-splitting or a Hochberg procedure (or similar approaches) are used. Please submit a copy of the statistical analysis plan in English.

Submit the trial protocol in an English translation as appendix.

Consider working the trial statistician together with an experienced trialist to bring the reporting of the study to highest standards.

The trial must have been registered before its start. Please provide registration details (i.e. the NCT number etc).

Studies describing survival rates and prognostic associations must provide:

1. in the abstract and
2. in the methods or results section (as appropriate)
3. the number of events observed in the overall cohort, as well as the 1-year mortality rate (with 95% CI) and, if appropriate, also the 5-year mortality rate (with 95% CI) and/or the 3-month mortality rate (with 95% CI). This will serve to assess the power of the study.

All Kaplan-Meier survival graphs should display the number of “patients at risk” for each group at baseline and at follow-up intervals. In the figure legend or directly within the figure, hazard ratios or rate ratios (as appropriate) along with their 95% CI and p-values must be provided. Additionally, the total number of events included in the analysis should be clearly specified.

Novel prognostic markers should be studied in cohorts with at least 60–100 events. Novel prognostic scores should be studied in cohorts with at least 150–200 events. Validation of prognostic factors in a second cohort is strongly recommended to independently validate suggested best cut-offs that are based on the first (derivation) cohort results.

Reviews
These should not exceed 6000 words (excluding abstract, references, tables and figures) and may include up to 8 figures (max of 6 sub-sections per figure) and/or tables and up to 120 references. Additional figures, tables and references should be submitted as supplement. The abstract can be unstructured and should not exceed 400 words. Important note: the abstract needs to be data/information rich.

Editorials (by invitation only)
These should not exceed 1500 words (excluding references, tables and figures) and include typically one, with exceptions two figures and/or tables and up to 20 references (exceptions are made for submissions in the “Facts & Numbers” series and statistical analyses). Typically, Editorials do not contain an abstract, except for submissions in the “Facts & Numbers” series (up to 400 words, data/information rich).

Research/Scientific Letters
These should not exceed 1200 words (excluding references, tables and figures) and include typically one figure and/or table and up to 10 references).

Short Report
These should not exceed 1500 words (excluding references, tables and figures) and include up to two figures and/or table and up to 10 references).

Meeting Report
These should not exceed 1500 words, and up to 20 references.

Reply, and Letters to the Editor
These should not exceed 1200 words
 

Manuscript Submission
Submission of a manuscript implies: that the work described has not been published before; that it is not under consideration for publication anywhere else; that its publication has been approved by all co-authors, if any, as well as by the responsible authorities – tacitly or explicitly – at the institute where the work has been carried out. The publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.

Manuscripts submitted and accepted for publication will be published as open access articles, immediately free to read, download and share. Authors or their funder will shortly be required to pay an Article Publication Charge upon acceptance.

Permissions
Authors wishing to include figures, tables, or text passages that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) for both the print and online format and to include evidence that such permission has been granted when submitting their papers. Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors.

Please be aware that some publishers do not grant electronic rights for free and that Wiley will not be able to refund any costs that may have occurred to receive these permissions. In such cases, material from other sources should be used.
Posting of unrefereed manuscripts to a community preprint server (e.g. arXiv or bioRxiv) by the author does not preclude consideration for publication. Authors who post to a community preprint server should identity the preprint server and include the accession # or doi in their cover letter. Upon publication, authors should request that the respective community preprint server acknowledges that the article has been published and add that the journal reference [including DOI link to the published article] is included.

Submission
Please submit your manuscript online at https://www.editorialmanager.com/jcsm/

Parts of the Manuscript

Title Page
The title page should include:
- The name(s) of the author(s)- A concise and informative title. The title should include a maximum of 120 characters or 15 words.
- The affiliation(s) and address(es) of the author(s)
- The e-mail address, telephone and fax numbers of the corresponding author

Corresponding Author
JCSM permits only one corresponding author per manuscript submission. The corresponding author serves as the main contact for the journal office and is the sole author who can access or modify the manuscript during the editorial review process.

After a manuscript has been accepted, no modifications to authorship are permitted. This includes adding or removing authors, changing the Corresponding Author or designating multiple first authors, or adjusting the order of authors. Any requests for designating multiple first authors or equal contributions among the authors must be clearly stated in the cover letter at submission, and will be approved at the Editor’s discretion.

Abstract
The authors are required to pay particular attention to preparing their abstract as this is a reflection of their work and may be the only part that is read by some readers. The abstract may not contain more than 400  words.
The abstract should be formatted with the following heading: (1) Background, (2) Methods (3) Results, (4) Conclusions. The results section of the abstract should summarize the main results supported by actual data in terms of numbers and key characteristics of the study cohort (if applicable), percentages, percent differences, important correlations/associations, hazard or odds ratios and similar information including also some p-values etc. For clinical studies, please always mention the number of patients and some important characteristics of the study population (e.g. % females, mean age+/- SD, etc.). Please pay particular attention for the abstract to be easily understandable and avoid excessive use of abbreviations. Be to the point and check whether the key messages are presented including important facts and p-values supporting these messages. If in doubt, add more data rather than less. Please omit all "filling words" used for style such as "thus", "therefore", "moreover" and the like. You will find, that these are redundant in the vast majority of cases.

Keywords
Please provide 4 to 6 keywords which can be used for indexing purposes.

Text
Manuscripts should be submitted in Word.
• Use a normal, plain font (e.g., 10-point Times Roman) for text.
• Use italics for emphasis.
• Use the automatic page numbering function to number the pages.
• Do not use field functions.
• Use tab stops or other commands for indents, not the space bar.
• Use the table function, not spreadsheets, to make tables.
• Use the equation editor or MathType for equations.
• Save your file in docx format (Word 2007 or higher) or doc format (older Word versions).
Manuscripts with mathematical content can also be submitted in LaTeX.

Headings
Please use no more than three levels of displayed headings.

Abbreviations
The use of abbreviations – particularly of unusual abbreviations – should be very limited. Abbreviation must be explained when used first in the text, but also in the footnotes of Tables and Figures. We recommend to avoid using abbreviations as much as possible in the abstract as well as in the conclusion part of the paper.

Footnotes
Footnotes can be used to give additional information, which may include the citation of a reference included in the reference list. They should not consist solely of a reference citation, and they should never include the bibliographic details of a reference. They should also not contain any figures or tables.
Footnotes to the text are numbered consecutively; those to tables should be indicated by superscript lower-case letters (or asterisks for significance values and other statistical data). Footnotes to the title or the authors of the article are not given reference symbols.
Always use footnotes instead of endnotes.

Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments of people, grants, funds, etc. should be placed in a separate section before the reference list. The names of funding organizations should be written in full.
 
Ethical standards
All authors must certify in their manuscript that they comply with the Ethical guidelines for authorship and publishing in the Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle.

• Ethical guidelines

Manuscripts submitted for publication must contain a statement to the effect that all human and animal studies have been approved by the appropriate ethics committee and have therefore been performed in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments.

It should also be stated clearly in the text that all persons gave their informed consent prior to their inclusion in the study. Details that might disclose the identity of the subjects under study should be omitted.

These statements should be added in a separate section before the reference list. If these statements are not applicable, authors should state: The manuscript does not contain clinical studies or patient data.

The editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with the above-mentioned requirements. The author will be held responsible for false statements or failure to fulfill the above-mentioned requirements.

Conflict of Interest
When an author or the institution of the author has a relationship, financial or otherwise, with individuals or organizations that could influence the author’s work inappropriately, a conflict of interest may exist. Examples of potential conflicts of interest may include but are not limited to academic, personal, or political relationships; employment; consultancies or honoraria; and finical connections such as stock ownership and funding. Although an author may not feel that there are conflicts, disclosure of relationships and interests that could be viewed by others as conflicts of interest affords a more transparent and prudent process.
Each individual author must disclose any current or potential conflict of interest.

References
Up to 40 (Original Articles)/ 120 (Reviews) references deemed to be of utmost importance by the authors can be referenced in the manuscript itself. Should the authors wish to cite more than 40/ 120 references, those exceeding the limit can be cited as part of an online supplement. The online supplement including additional references is supposed to include those deemed to be of secondary importance. We discourage to simply cut the reference list at 40/ 120, because this approach does not represent a meaningful selection. The numbering of the additional references should start with S1, S2, S3 etc.

Citation
Reference citations in the text should be identified by numbers in square brackets. Some examples:
1. Negotiation research spans many disciplines [3].
2. This result was later contradicted by Becker and Seligman [5].
3. This effect has been widely studied [1-3, 7].

Reference Style

As of August 15, 2024, there is no submission requirement for formatting references.

We do ask that authors use a consistent reference style throughout the manuscript and include:

• Author(s) name(s)
• Journal title/book title
• Article title (where applicable)
• Year of Publication
• Volume & Issue / Book Chapter
• Pagination
• Optional: DOI

If your manuscript is accepted for publication, we will update the formatting into the journal style.

Tables

• All tables are to be numbered using Arabic numerals.
  • Tables should always be cited in text in consecutive numerical order.
  • For each table, please supply a table caption (title) explaining the components of the table.
  • Identify any previously published material by giving the original source in the form of a reference at the end of the table caption.
  • Footnotes to tables should be indicated by superscript lower-case letters (or asterisks for significance values and other statistical data) and included beneath the table body.

 
Artwork and Illustrations Guidelines

• Supply all figures electronically.
  • Indicate what graphics program was used to create the artwork.
  • For vector graphics, the preferred format is EPS; for halftones, please use TIFF format. MSOffice files are also acceptable.
  • Vector graphics containing fonts must have the fonts embedded in the files.
• A maximum of 6 sub-sections per figure is allowed. These should be labelled from a-f. All other figures need to be published in an online supplement.
  • Name your figure files with "Fig" and the figure number, e.g., Fig1.eps.
  For further information, please visit http://authorservices.wiley.com/electronicartworkguidelines.pdf

Line Art

• Definition: Black and white graphic with no shading.
  • Do not use faint lines and/or lettering and check that all lines and lettering within the figures are legible at final size.
  • All lines should be at least 0.1 mm (0.3 pt) wide.
  • Scanned line drawings and line drawings in bitmap format should have a minimum resolution of 1200 dpi.
  • Vector graphics containing fonts must have the fonts embedded in the files.

Halftone Art

• Definition: Photographs, drawings, or paintings with fine shading, etc.
  • If any magnification is used in the photographs, indicate this by using scale bars within the figures themselves.
  • Halftones should have a minimum resolution of 300 dpi.

Combination Art

• Definition: a combination of halftone and line art, e.g., halftones containing line drawing, extensive lettering, color diagrams, etc.
  • Combination artwork should have a minimum resolution of 600 dpi.

Color illustrations
Online publication of color illustrations is free of charge.
Color illustrations should be submitted as RGB (8 bits per channel).

Figure Lettering

• To add lettering, it is best to use Helvetica or Arial (sans serif fonts).
  • Keep lettering consistently sized throughout your final-sized artwork, usually about 2–3 mm (8–12 pt).
  • Variance of type size within an illustration should be minimal, e.g., do not use 8-pt type on an axis and 20-pt type for the axis label.
  • Avoid effects such as shading, outline letters, etc.
  • Do not include titles or captions within your illustrations.

Figure Numbering

• All figures are to be numbered using Arabic numerals.
  • Figures should always be cited in text in consecutive numerical order.
  • Figure parts should be denoted by lowercase letters (a, b, c, etc.).
  • If an appendix appears in your article and it contains one or more figures, continue the consecutive numbering of the main text. Do not number the appendix figures,
  "A1, A2, A3, etc." Figures in online appendices (Electronic Supporting Information) should, however, be numbered separately, e.g. Figure S1, Table S1.

Figure Captions

• Each figure should have a concise caption describing accurately what the figure depicts. Include the captions in the text file of the manuscript, not in the figure file.
  • Figure captions begin with the term Fig. in bold type, followed by the figure number, also in bold type.
  • No punctuation is to be included after the number, nor is any punctuation to be placed at the end of the caption.
  • Identify all elements found in the figure in the figure caption; and use boxes, circles, etc., as coordinate points in graphs.
  • Identify previously published material by giving the original source in the form of a reference citation at the end of the figure caption.

Figure Placement and Size

• When preparing your figures, size figures to fit in the column width.

Accessibility
In order to give people of all abilities and disabilities access to the content of your figures, please make sure that
• All figures have descriptive captions (blind users could then use a text-to-speech software or a text-to-Braille hardware)
• Patterns are used instead of or in addition to colors for conveying information (colorblind users would then be able to distinguish the visual elements)
• Any figure lettering has a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1
 
Supporting Information
Supporting information is not essential to the article but provides greater depth and background and may include tables, figures, videos, datasets, etc. This material should be submitted at the same time as the main manuscript, and will appear online, without editing or typesetting. Guidelines on how to prepare this material and which formats and file sizes are acceptable can be found at http://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/suppmat.asp.
Please note that supporting information will be assessed critically by reviewers and editors and will only be accepted if it adds value to the paper. Supporting information should not contain data that are critical to the paper.

Submission

• Supply all supporting information in standard file formats.
  • Please include in each file the following information: article title, journal name, author names; affiliation and e-mail address of the corresponding author.
  • To accommodate user downloads, please keep in mind that larger-sized files may require very long download times and that some users may experience other problems during downloading.

Audio, Video, and Animations

• Always use MPEG-1 (.mpg) format.

Text and Presentations

• Submit your material in PDF format; .doc or .ppt files are not suitable for long-term viability.
  • A collection of figures may also be combined in a PDF file.

Spreadsheets

• Spreadsheets should be converted to PDF if no interaction with the data is intended.
  • If the readers should be encouraged to make their own calculations, spreadsheets should be submitted as .xls files (MS Excel).

Specialized Formats

• Specialized format such as .pdb (chemical), .wrl (VRML), .nb (Mathematica notebook), and .tex can also be supplied.

Collecting Multiple Files

• It is possible to collect multiple files in a .zip or .gz file.

Numbering

• If supplying any supporting information, the text must make specific mention of the material as a citation, similar to that of figures and tables.
  • Refer to the supporting information files as “Supporting Information”, e.g., "... as shown in the animation (Supporting Information Movie S3)", “... additional data are given in Supporting Information Appendix S4”.
  • Name the files consecutively, e.g. “Supporting Information_Movie S3.mpg”, “Supporting Information_Appendix S4.pdf”.

Captions

• For each piece of Supporting Information, please supply a concise caption describing the content of the file.
  Processing of Supporting Information
  • Supporting Information will be published as received from the author without any conversion, editing, or reformatting.

Accessibility
In order to give people of all abilities and disabilities access to the content of your Supporting Information files, please make sure that
• The manuscript contains a descriptive caption for each piece of Supporting Information
• Video files do not contain anything that flashes more than three times per second (so that users prone to seizures caused by such effects are not put at risk)
 

Post-Submission

Author Services
Online production tracking is available for your article through Wiley's Author Services. Author Services enables authors to track their article, once it has been accepted, through the production process to publication. Authors can check the status of their articles online and choose to receive automated e-mails at key stages of production. The corresponding author will receive a unique link that enables them to register and have their article automatically added to the system. Please ensure that a complete e-mail address is provided when submitting the manuscript.
Visit http://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/default.asp for more details on online production tracking and for a wealth of resources including FAQs and tips on article preparation, submission and more.

Peer-Review
All articles will undergo a rigorous peer-review prior to acceptance. The Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle uses a single-blind peer-review process.

Open Access Agreements
This journal is a Gold Open Access journal. Submissions will be subject to an APC if accepted and published in the journal. You can read more about APCs and whether you may be eligible for waivers or discounts, through your institution, funder, or a country waiver. For more information on this journal’s APCs and licensing policy, please visit the journal’s Open Access page.

Proof Corrections
The corresponding author will receive an e-mail alert containing a link to a website. A working e-mail address must therefore be provided for the corresponding author. The proof can be downloaded as a PDF (portable document format) file from this site.
Acrobat Reader will be required in order to read this file. This software can be downloaded (free of charge) from the Adobe website. This will enable the file to be opened, read on screen, and any corrections to be added in. Further instructions will be sent with the proof.
The purpose of the proof is to check for typesetting or conversion errors and the completeness and accuracy of the text, tables and figures. Substantial changes in content, e.g., new results, corrected values, title and authorship, are not allowed without the approval of the Editor.
After online publication, further changes can only be made in the form of an Erratum, which will be hyperlinked to the article.

Early View
Early View articles are complete full-text articles published online in advance of their publication in an issue. Early View articles are the version of record and are complete and final. They have been fully reviewed, revised and edited for publication, and the authors’ final corrections have been incorporated. As they are in final form, no changes can be made after online publication. Early View articles are given a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), which allows the article to be cited and tracked before it is allocated to an issue. After issue publication, the DOI remains valid and can continue to be used to cite and access the article.
 

Other Information

Article Promotion Support
Wiley Editing Services offers professional video, design, and writing services to create shareable video abstracts, infographics, conference posters, lay summaries, and research news stories for your research – so you can help your research get the attention it deserves.

Reprints
As this is an open access journal, you have free, unlimited access to your article online. However, if you wish to obtain printed reprints, these may be ordered online: www.sheridan.com/wiley/eoc

Author Material Archival Policy
Please note that unless specifically requested, Wiley will dispose of all hardcopy or electronic material submitted two months after publication. If you require the return of any material submitted, please inform the production editor as soon as possible.