Korean Journal of Pancreas and Biliary Tract

Enacted in March, 1996
Revised in April, 2001
Revised in September, 2007
Revised in February, 2010
Revised in October, 2012
Revised in April, 2014
Revised in July, 2016
Revised in December, 2017
Revised in January, 2020
Revised in December, 2023

The Korean Journal of Pancreas and Biliary Tract, the official journal for Korean Pancreatobiliary Association, is published four times annually (on the last day of January, April, July, and October).
Submissions must be on the epidemiology, pathophysiology, diagnosis, and treatment of pancreatobiliary diseases and include basic, translational, and clinical research. The journal is officially abbreviated as Korean J Pancreas Biliary Tract.

Code of Ethics

If there is any conflict of interest, the authors should disclose it. If a specific drug or medical equipment is involved in the research, the authors should clarify any commercial relationship with the manufacture or research funds from the manufacturer.

For human research, the study should follow the Declaration of Helsinki, available at http://www.wma.net. For animal studies, the authors should indicate the efforts to minimize pain or discomfort to the animals in relation to the Institutional Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animal.

Approval from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) is required for clinical research. Clinical trials should be registered with a primary national clinical trial registration site, such as the Korean Clinical Research Information Service (CRiS), available at http://cris.nih.go.kr or other sites accredited by the World Health Organization (WHO) or the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors and the registration number should be cited in the Abstract.

Authorship

Authorship credit should be based on 1) substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition, analysis, and interpretation of data, 2) substantial contributions to writing and revising a draft for pertinent and important contents and 3) final approval of the version to be published according to the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journal. Any papers that are forged, altered, plagiarized, redundant, or dishonest cannot be published.

The corresponding author must give a written assurance that the submission has not been published previously or is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Any material that could constitute prior or concurrent publication of similar data by any one of the authors should not be submitted with the manuscript. It is assumed that the corresponding author speaks for the co-authors and certifies that all the listed authors meaningfully participated in the study and that they have seen and approved the final manuscript.

All the authors are required to provide his/her “Open Researcher and Contributor iD “(ORCID), when submitting a manuscript to The Korean Journal of Pancreas and Biliary Tract. During the submission process, authors will have the option to either create an ORCID ID or associate an existing ORCID ID to their account. To learn more about ORCID, please visit https://orcid.org/about.

It is the responsibility of the authors to determine the order of authorship. The Korean Journal of Pancreas and Biliary Tract will not and cannot take any part in adjudicating authorship disputes.

Manuscript Material and Presentation

All the submitted original articles, case reports, review articles, comments (editorial) and brief reports must be in the field of pancreatobiliary diseases. All the submissions will be peer-reviewed and then the decisions on acceptance, rejection, or revision will be made.
The researchers involved in the study related to pancreatobiliary system can submit an article.
All the submissions should be submitted in either Korean or standard English.
All the articles must be submitted through the online submission system of Korean Pancreatobiliary Association’s website (http://submit.kjpbt.org/). All the comments or corrections must be uploaded at the online submission system. Submission instructions are included in “Instruction for Authors”. Online submission can be done only by the corresponding author or the first author.
To promote gender-sensitive research, the authors should include the study participants, animals or cells regardless of sex/gender. The term “sex” is to be used when reporting biological factors and “gender” is to be used to describe identity, psychosocial or cultural factors. Whenever applicable, the authors should report the sex/gender of study participants, sex of animals or cells, and describe the methods used to determine sex and/or gender. If the particular study was conducted on an exclusive population, i.e., only one sex, the authors need to provide reasons unless self-explanatory, e.g., ovarian cancer. Authors should define how they determined race or ethnicity and justify their relevance.
Upon request, final corrections must be submitted within a month by the author.

Manuscript order

1. Order in which the manuscript must be written

1) Original Article

① Paper title, each author’s full name and institutional affiliation(s) (number of authors is limited to 15), running-title, corresponding author’s name, full address, telephone and facsimile numbers, E-mail address, and footnotes ② English abstract (Background/Aim, Methods, Results, and Conclusions in 200 words or less), and keywords (5 words or less) ③ Introduction ④ Methods ⑤ Results ⑥ Discussion ⑦ Korean summary (within 500 words) and keywords (5 words or less), if paper is written in Korean ⑧ Acknowledgements ⑨ References (limited to 40) ⑩ Figure legends ⑪ Tables, Figures, Images.

2) Case report

① Paper title, each author’s full name and institutional affiliation(s) (number of authors is limited to 8), running-title, corresponding author’s name, full address, telephone and facsimile numbers, E-mail address, and footnotes ② English abstract (150 words or less) and keywords (5 words or less) ③ Introduction ④ Case ⑤ Discussion ⑥ Korean summary (within 500 words) and keywords (5 words or less), if paper is written in Korean ⑦ References (limited to 15) ⑧ Figure legends ⑨ Tables, Figures, Images.

3) Review Articles

① Paper title, each author’s full name and institutional affiliation(s) (number of authors is limited to 8), running-title, corresponding author’s name, full address, telephone and facsimile numbers, E-mail address, and footnotes ② English abstract (250 words or less) and keywords (limited to 5) ③ Introduction ④ Main body ⑤ Conclusion ⑥ Korean summary (within 500 words) and keywords (5 words or less), if paper is written in Korean ⑦ References ⑧ Figure legends ⑨ Tables, Figures, Images.

4) Brief reports

① Paper title, each author’s full name and institutional affiliation(s) (number of authors is limited to 5), running-title, corresponding author’s name, full address, telephone and facsimile numbers, E-mail address, and footnotes ② Case (less than 1,500 words if written in English, less than 5,000 characters if written in Korean) ③ References (limited to 10) ④ Figure legends ⑤ Tables and figures (limited to 3).

2. Detailed writing tips

Main body, tables and figures must be written on consecutive, separate pages.

1) Title page

① The title, each author’s name and affiliation must be clearly stated. When the authors’ affiliations are different, the author’s name should be clearly marked with a shoulder number and listed in numerical order.
② At the bottom of the title page, running-title, contact details (the corresponding author’s name, address, phone number, facsimile number, and E-mail address), and any financial support received should be clearly stated. The title of the paper should not exceed 15 words. The running-title must not exceed 10 words. Five or fewer keywords from MeSH terms (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/meshhome.html) should be provided at the end of the abstract.
③ All the authors are required to state and submit his/her "Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID), when submitting a manuscript to The Korean Journal of Pancreas and Biliary Tract. To learn more about ORCID, please visit https://orcid.org/about.

2) Main body

① The title must be clearly stated on the first page. The authors’ name sand affiliations are stated on the first page only.
② The manuscript should be a MS word file using 10 point letters and in a double-space format. Each page must be numbered at the center of bottom.
③ If the paper is written in Korean, the medical terminology used should be from the latest published version of the Korean Medical Association.
④ Numbers should be Arabic. Weights and measurements must follow the SI units (international system of units). Measurements that do not use the SI units must be clearly stated in parenthesis. Drug names should be given in their generic form. The manufacturer’s name, city and country for medical equipment and test drugs must be given in parenthesis. Abbreviations must be given to words that are repeated more than 3 times throughout the paper. When an abbreviation is used for the first time, a full name should be followed by an abbreviation in parentheses. Then, the use of the abbreviation is allowed.
⑤ If the title exceeds 15 words in length, a running-title must be included.
⑥ Acknowledgments, financial grants and previous scientific presentations regarding the paper in question must be stated in footnotes.
⑦ In the introduction, the purpose of this study must be concise and the background must be clearly presented.
⑧ In the methods section, study plans, targets, methods should be stated under separate subheadings. Observations and diagnosis of all the study subjects must be well documented. It must be clearly stated that the authors have met the requirements needed for clinical research from the institution’s ethics committee and have received permission from the animal experiments committee to perform experiments on animals.
⑨ The results must be stated clearly in the results section. If tables are used for data presentation, their contents should not be reiterated in the results section.
⑩ In the discussion, explanation of results in relation to the hypotheses in the introduction should be given. Also, relevant information that is associated with results of other studies must be stated. Data in the results section should not be repeated in the discussion. The significance and limitations of the authors’ observations must be explained. The hypotheses in the introduction must be answered in the conclusion.
⑪ If acronyms are used in a table, they must be explained at the bottom of the table. Symbols such as *, †, ‡, §, ¶, **, ††, ‡‡ are to be used in order with their explanation as footnotes at the bottom. Explanations on statistical methods used should also be stated as footnotes at the bottom of the table (e.g., *Mann-Whitney U test).

3) Tables

Tables must be in English with a clear title at the top without any abbreviations, and only the first letter should be capitalized. Tables should be numbered in the order in which they are cited in the text (e.g., Table 1).

4) Figure legends, figures, and images

Figure legends are described on a separate page in the form of full sentences, not clauses. When cited in the text, the figures are to be numbered with Arabic numerals in order of citation and labeled clearly (e.g., Fig. 1). Figures should be easy to understand, and abbreviations should be clearly described.

Figures and images must be submitted in separate files with names such as Figure 1A, Figure 1B, and Figure 2. If there are numerous images to one number, that number should be followed by an alphabetical letter to show its order of sequence (e.g., Fig. 1A, Fig. 1B). If microscopic images are used, their staining and magnification records must be stated (e.g., HE, ×100). Photographic images should be submitted in jpg, gif, or ppt format with a final resolution of not less than 300 dpi.

5) Supplementary materials

It is encouraged to submit non-essential figures or portions of the submitted manuscript as supplementary material for online-only publication, as this is highly beneficial to the readers. Authors who offer supplementary information must ensure those materials are readily available upon request. The supplementary material should have a manuscript title, list of authors, a table of contents, followed by the list of investigators (if there is one), text (such as methods), figures, tables, and then references.

3. References

References are to be marked with a superscript number at the end of the sentence or after the author’s name. References must be listed on a separate page at the end of the manuscript. They must be numbered in Arabic numerals in the order of citation. All the listed references must be cited in the main body. Maximum number of references for an original article is 40 and that for a case report is 15. All the names of the authors should be listed if there are less than 7 authors. If there are more than 7 authors, the names of first three authors should be listed and followed by “et al.” Unpublished data cannot be used as references but may be mentioned in the main body in parentheses.
For journal titles abbreviations, those in the Index Medicus should be used (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals). References must follow “Vancouver style”, which is shown in the following examples:

▶ Journals:
e.g.: Lee SP, Nicholls JF, Park HJ. Biliary sludge as a cause of acute pancreatitis. N Engl J Med 1994;356:589-594.

▶ Separate book: Author, book name, edition number, page number, city of publication, publishing company, publication year.
e.g.: Goldman H, Appleman HD, Kaufman N. Gastrointestinal pathology. 1st ed. p241-247, Baltimore, Williams & Wilkins, 1990.

▶ Quoting cited literature:
e.g.: Soergerl KH. Acute Pancreatitis. In: Sleisenger MH, Fordtran JS, eds. Gastrointestinal disease: pathophysiology, diagnosis and management. 4th ed. p1814-1819, Philladelphia, W.B. Saunders Co., 1989.

▶ Supplementary articles or summarized abstracts:
e.g.: 1) Sriram PVJ, Rao GV, Reddy DN. The precut- when, where, and how? Endoscopy 2003;35(Suppl): 24-30.
2) Yoo BM, Kim JH, Jung JH, et al. Large balloon sphincteroplasty along with or without sphincterotomy in patients with large extrahepatic bile duct stones-multi center study [Abstract]. Gastrointest Endosc 2007;65:97A.

Peer reviews, publication, and other matters

The Editor-in-Chief reviews every submission and decides the suitability for external peer review.
All the authors must sign a copyright transfer form relinquishing ownership at initial submission. After initial submission, addition or change of authors is forbidden. The copyright transfer form can be sent by one of the following methods: 1) upload using e-submission system(http://submit.kjpbt.org/), 2) postal delivery to the office of “The Korean Journal of Pancreas and Biliary Tract”, 3) FAX, 4) E-mail to ercp@kams.or.kr
The editorial committee will have the submission peer-reviewed by three or more reviewers. Based on the reviewers’ recommendations, the submission will be considered for publication. Recommended revision/corrections/changes that have not been improvised by the author may result in rejection.
Revision is restricted to three times per single submission. If a response to the reviewer’s recommendations has not been received within 12 weeks during the process of revision, the submission process will be terminated.
When revision is submitted, the authors must answer the reviewers’ recommendations one by one and explain what and how the authors improvised the manuscript. All the modifications made by the authors must be in red color.
The editorial committee, when deemed necessary, may edit the manuscript, terms and structure in accordance with the editorial policy.
All the articles published in this journal will be the property of “The Korean Journal of Pancreas and Biliary Tract”. However, the sole legal responsibility of each article’s content is that of the authors. It is a violation to pre-announce the information of the paper before publication, and commercially advertising purposes is strictly prohibited. However, there may be an exception for emergent public health emergencies.
The review and publication processes that are not described here should refer to the section of “Reviewer guideline” in the official journal website (http://kjpbt.org/authors/reviewer_guide.php).

Page Charge or Article Processing Charge

Original articles and review articles are exempt from article processing charges until there is a policy change.
Article processing charge for case reports is waivered. This policy will be applied to the case reports submitted from September 2023.

Contact information

Editorial Correspondence
Should be sent to Jimin Han, MD
Korean Pancreatobiliary Association #723 Le Meilleur Jongro Town,
Jongro19, Jongro-gu, Seoul 03157, Korea
Tel: +82-2-2285-5145
Fax: +82-2-2285-5146
E-mail: ercp@kams.or.kr

Business Correspondence
Korean Pancreatobiliary Association
#723 Le Meilleur Jongro Town, Jongro19,
Jongro-gu, Seoul 03157, Korea
Tel: +82-2-2285-5145
Fax: +82-2-2285-5146
E-mail: ercp@kams.or.kr