The Journal of Geriatric Oncology is an international, multidisciplinary journal which is focused on advancing research in the pathogenesis, biology, treatment, and survivorship issues of older adults with cancer. The journal covers all aspects of geriatric oncology, from basic scientific research through to clinical research, as well as research that is relevant to education and policy development.

The Journal of Geriatric Oncology publishes original research articles, review articles, clinical trials, treatment guidelines, short communications and letters to the editor which comment on previously published work.

The Journal of Geriatric Oncology is the official journal of the International Society of Geriatric Oncology (SIOG).

Manuscript Categories

The Journal of Geriatric Oncology publishes articles in the following categories:

Editorials: Editorials are invited by the Editor-in-Chief. Editorials do not have an abstract or keywords and should be limited to 1,500 words in length.

Original Research Articles: Original, full-length research papers which have not been published previously, except in a preliminary form, may be submitted. Original research papers should include a structured abstract and should be divided into sections (Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion). They should not exceed 3,500 words in length.

Review Articles: Review articles which are topical and which are a critical assessment of any aspect of geriatric oncology may be submitted. Review articles should include an unstructured abstract. They should not exceed 5,000 words in length.

Clinical Trials: Papers reporting the results of clinical trials may be submitted. Clinical trials papers should include a structured abstract and should be divided into sections (Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion). They should not exceed 3,500 words in length.

Education and Training Articles: Full-length papers which report on education and training initiatives in geriatric oncology may be submitted. Education and training articles should include a structured abstract and should be divided into sections (Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion). They should not exceed 3,500 words in length.

Short Communications: Short communications provide a brief but complete account of a piece of work. They should have a structured abstract and should be divided into sections (Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion). Short communications should have no more than ten references and should not exceed 2,000 words in length.

Perspectives: Perspectives papers are invited by the Editor-in-Chief. They are short communications in which individuals involved with the field of geriatric oncology comment on aspects of care or research which have shaped their thinking and their practice. Perspectives papers do not have an abstract and are limited to 1,500 words.

Meeting Reports: Reports on geriatric oncology conferences, meetings and workshops are welcomed, although authors are recommended to discuss their proposal first with the Editor-in-Chief. Meeting reports do have an abstract and keywords and should not exceed 3,000 words in length.

Letters to the Editor: Letters of 1,000 words or less which relate to previously published work from the Journal of Geriatric Oncology may be submitted. The Editor-in-Chief may choose to invite a reply from the authors of the paper on which the letter is commenting.

Submission Checklist

It is hoped that this list will be useful during the final checking of an article prior to sending it to the journal's Editor for review. Please consult this Guide for Authors for further details of any item.

Ensure that the following items are present:

•One author designated as corresponding author:
E-mail address
Full postal address
Telephone and fax numbers
•All necessary files have been uploaded
•Keywords
•All figure captions
•All tables (including title, description, footnotes)

Further considerations
•Manuscript has been "spell-checked" and "grammar-checked"
•References are in the correct format for this journal
•All references mentioned in the Reference list are cited in the text, and vice versa
•Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Web)
•Colour figures are clearly marked as being intended for colour reproduction on the Web (free of charge) and in print or to be reproduced in colour on the Web (free of charge) and in black-and-white in print
•If only colour on the Web is required, black and white versions of the figures are also supplied for printing purposes

•Author contributions have been provided at the end of the manuscript

For any further information please contact the Author Support Department at authorsupport@elsevier.com.

General Information:

The Journal of Geriatric Oncology will consider manuscripts prepared according to the guidelines adopted by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors ("Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals", available as a PDF from http://www.icmje.org). Authors are advised to read these guidelines.

Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the copyright holder.

Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to sign a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' (for more information on this and copyright see http://www.elsevier.com/copyright). Acceptance of the agreement will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information. An e-mail (or letter) will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript together with a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' form or a link to the online version of this agreement. Subscribers may reproduce tables of contents or prepare lists of articles including abstracts for internal circulation within their institutions. Permission of the Publisher is required for resale or distribution outside the institution and for all other derivative works, including compilations and translations (please consult http://www.elsevier.com/permissions).

If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included, the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article. Elsevier has preprinted forms for use by authors in these cases: please consult http://www.elsevier.com/permissions.

Funding Body Agreements and Policies

Elsevier has established agreements and developed policies to allow authors whose articles appear in journals published by Elsevier, to comply with potential manuscript archiving requirements as specified as conditions of their grant awards. To learn more about existing agreements and policies please visit http://www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies

Authors' Rights

As an author you (or your employer or institution) retain certain rights; for details you are referred to: http://www.elsevier.com/authorsrights.

Patient Consent Guidelines

Studies on patients or volunteers require ethics committee approval and informed consent which should be documented in your paper.

Patients have a right to privacy. Therefore, identifying information, including patients' images, names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be included in videos, recordings, written descriptions, photographs, and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and you have obtained written informed consent for publication in print and electronic form from the patient (or parent, guardian or next of kin where applicable). If such consent is made subject to any conditions, Elsevier must be made aware of all such conditions. Written consents must be provided to Elsevier on request.

Even where consent has been given, identifying details should be omitted if they are not essential. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic pedigrees, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort scientific meaning and Editors should so note.

If such consent has not been obtained, personal details of patients included in any part of the paper and in any supplementary materials (including all illustrations and videos) must be removed before submission.

Randomised Controlled Trials

All randomised controlled trials submitted for publication in the Journal of Geriatric Oncology should include a completed Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) flow chart. Please refer to the CONSORT statement website at http://www.consort-statement.org for more information. The Journal of Geriatric Oncology has adopted the proposal from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) which require, as a condition of consideration for publication of clinical trials, registration in a public trials registry. Trials must register at or before the onset of patient enrolment. The clinical trial registration number should be included at the end of the abstract of the article. For this purpose, a clinical trial is defined as any research project that prospectively assigns human subjects to intervention or comparison groups to study the cause-and-effect relationship between a medical intervention and a health outcome. Studies designed for other purposes, such as to study pharmacokinetics or major toxicity (e.g. phase I trials) would be exempt. Further information can be found at www.icmje.org.

Ethics

Work on human beings that is submitted to the Journal of Geriatric Oncology should comply with the principles laid down in the Declaration of Helsinki; Recommendations guiding physicians in biomedical research involving human subjects, adopted by the 18th World Medical Assembly, Helsinki, Finland, June 1964, amended by the 29th World Medical Assembly, Tokyo, Japan, October 1975, the 35th World Medical Assembly, Venice, Italy, October 1983, and the 41st World Medical Assembly, Hong Kong, September 1989. The manuscript should contain a statement that the work has been approved by the appropriate ethical committees related to the institution(s) in which it was performed and that subjects gave informed consent to the work. Studies involving experiments with animals must state that their care was in accordance with institution guidelines. Patients' and volunteers' names, initials, and hospital numbers should not be used.

Role of the Funding Source

You are requested to identify who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article and to briefly describe the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the paper for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement then this should be stated. Please see http://www.elsevier.com/funding for more information.

Contributors

Each author is required to declare his or her individual contribution to the article: all authors must have materially participated in the research and/or article preparation, so roles for all authors should be listed using the following headings, Conception and Design, Data Collection, Analysis and Interpretation of Fata, Manuscript Writing, Approval of Final Article. The statement that all authors have approved the final article should be true and included in the disclosure.

Conflict of interest

All authors are requested to disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest including any financial, personal or other relationships with other people or organizations within three years of beginning the submitted work that could inappropriately influence, or be perceived to influence, their work. See also http://www.elsevier.com/conflictsofinterest.

Acknowledgements

List here those individuals who provided help during the research (e.g., providing language help, writing assistance or proofreading the article, etc.).

Submission to the Journal of Geriatric Oncology

Submission to this journal proceeds totally online. Via the homepage of this journal ( http://www.geriatriconcology.net) you will be guided stepwise through the creation and uploading of the various files. The system automatically converts source files to a single Adobe Acrobat PDF version of the article, which is used in the peer-review process. Please note that even though manuscript source files are converted to PDF at submission for the review process, these source files are needed for further processing after acceptance. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, takes place by e-mail and via the author's homepage, removing the need for a hard-copy paper trail.

General points

We accept most wordprocessing formats, but Word, WordPerfect or LaTeX is preferred. Always keep a backup copy of the electronic file for reference and safety. Save your files using the default extension of the program used.

Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these). Italics are not to be used for expressions of Latin origin, for example, in vivo, et al., per se. Use decimal points (not commas); use a space for thousands (10 000 and above).

Language Services:

Authors who require information about language editing and copyediting services pre- and post-submission please visit http://www.elsevier.com/languagepolishing or contact authorsupport@elsevier.com for more information. Please note Elsevier neither endorses nor takes responsibility for any products, goods or services offered by outside vendors through our services or in any advertising. For more information please refer to our Terms and Conditions http://www.elsevier.com/termsandconditions.

Presentation of the Manuscript:

Provide the following data on the title page (in the order given).

Title. Concise and informative. Titles are often used in information-retrieval systems. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible.

Author names and affiliations. Where the family name may be ambiguous (e.g., a double name), please indicate this clearly. Present the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names. Indicate all affiliations with a lower-case superscript letter immediately after the author's name and in front of the appropriate address. Provide the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name, and, if available, the e-mail address of each author.

Corresponding author. Clearly indicate who is willing to handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also post-publication. Ensure that telephone and fax numbers (with country and area code) are provided in addition to the e-mail address and the complete postal address.

Present/permanent address. If an author has moved since the work described in the article was done, or was visiting at the time, a "Present address" (or "Permanent address") may be indicated as a footnote to that author's name. The address at which the author actually did the work must be retained as the main, affiliation address. Superscript Arabic numerals are used for such footnotes.

Abstract. A concise and factual abstract of no more than 250 words is required. The abstract must be structured for original research articles, articles reporting the results of clinical trials, and short communications. The abstract should be divided by subheadings as follows: Objectives, Materials and Methods, Results and Conclusion.

The abstract should not be structured for review articles. The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research, the principal results and major conclusions. An abstract is often presented separate from the article, so it must be able to stand alone.

Keywords. Immediately after the abstract, provide a maximum of ten keywords, avoiding general and plural terms and multiple concepts (avoid, for example, "and", "of"). Be sparing with abbreviations: only abbreviations firmly established in the field may be eligible. These keywords will be used for indexing purposes.

Abbreviations. Define all abbreviations at their first occurrence in the article: in the abstract but also in the main text after it. Ensure consistency of abbreviations throughout the article.

Subdivision of the article. Divide your article into clearly defined sections. Each subsection is given a brief heading. Each heading should appear on its own separate line. Subsections should be used as much as possible when cross-referencing text: refer to the subsection by heading as opposed to simply "the text."

Introduction. State the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.

Experimental/Materials and methods. Provide sufficient detail to allow the work to be reproduced. Methods already published should be indicated by a reference: only relevant modifications should be described.

Results. Results should be clear and concise.

Discussion. This should explore the significance of the results of the work, not repeat them.

Appendices. If there is more than one appendix, they should be identified as A, B, etc. Formulae and equations in appendices should be given separate numbering: (Eq. A.1), (Eq. A.2), etc.; in a subsequent appendix, (Eq. B.1) and so forth.

Acknowledgements. Place acknowledgements before the references, in a separate section, and not as a footnote on the title page.

Figure captions, tables, figures, schemes. Present these, in this order, at the end of the article. They are described in more detail below. High-resolution graphics files must always be provided separate from the main text file (see Preparation of illustrations).

Tables. Number tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text. Place footnotes to tables below the table body and indicate them with superscript lowercase letters. Avoid vertical rules. Be sparing in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in tables do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article.

Nomenclature and units. Follow internationally accepted rules and conventions: use the international system of units (SI). If other quantities are mentioned, give their equivalent in SI.

Preparation of supplementary data. Elsevier accepts supplementary material to support and enhance your scientific research. Supplementary files offer the author additional possibilities to publish supporting applications, movies, animation sequences, high-resolution images, background datasets, sound clips and more. Supplementary files supplied will be published online alongside the electronic version of your article in Elsevier Web products, including ScienceDirect: http://www.sciencedirect.com. In order to ensure that your submitted material is directly usable, please ensure that data is provided in one of our recommended file formats. Authors should submit the material in electronic format together with the article and supply a concise and descriptive caption for each file. For more detailed instructions please visit our artwork instruction pages at http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.

References

The Journal of Geriatric Oncology uses the Vancouver style for references. Authors using EndNote or similar software packages should be able to select 'Vancouver' as an option for automatically formatting their references.

Citations in the text. Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Any references cited in the abstract must be given in full. Unpublished results and personal communications are not recommended in the reference list, but may be mentioned in the text. If these references are included in the reference list they should follow the standard reference style of the journal and should include a substitution of the publication date with either "Unpublished results" or "Personal communication". Citation of a reference as "in press" implies that the item has been accepted for publication.

Citing and listing of Web references. As a minimum, the full URL should be given. Any further information, if known (DOI, author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.), should also be given. Web references can be listed separately (e.g., after the reference list) under a different heading if desired, or can be included in the reference list.

Text. Indicate references by number(s) in square brackets in line with the text. The actual authors can be referred to, but the reference number(s) must always be given.

List. Number the references (numbers in square brackets) in the list in the order in which they appear in the text.

Examples:

Reference to a journal publication:
[1] Van der Geer J, Hanraads JAJ, Lupton RA. The art of writing a scientific article. J Sci Commun 2000;163:51-9.

Reference to a book:
[2] Strunk Jr W, White EB. The elements of style. 3rd ed. New York: Macmillan; 1979.

Reference to a chapter in an edited book:
[3] Mettam GR, Adams LB. How to prepare an electronic version of your article. In: Jones BS, Smith RZ, editors. Introduction to the electronic age, New York: E-Publishing Inc; 1999, p. 281-304

Note shortened form for last page number. e.g., 51-9, and that for more than 6 authors the first 6 should be listed followed by "et al." For further details you are referred to "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts submitted to Biomedical Journals" (J Am Med Assoc 1997;277:927-934) (see also http://www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/serials/terms_cond.html)

The digital object identifier (DOI) may be used to cite and link to electronic documents. The DOI consists of a unique alpha-numeric character string which is assigned to a document by the publisher upon the initial electronic publication. The assigned DOI never changes. Therefore, it is an ideal medium for citing a document, particularly 'Articles in press' because they have not yet received their full bibliographic information. The correct format for citing a DOI is shown as follows (example taken from a document in the journal Physics Letters B):

doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2003.10.071

When you use the DOI to create URL hyperlinks to documents on the web, they are guaranteed never to change.

Preparation of Electronic Illustrations

General points•Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of your original artwork.
•Save text in illustrations as "graphics" or enclose the font.
•Only use the following fonts in your illustrations: Arial, Courier, Helvetica, Times, Symbol.
•Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text.
•Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files.
•Provide all illustrations as separate files and as hardcopy printouts on separate sheets.
•Provide captions to illustrations separately.
•Produce images near to the desired size of the printed version.


A detailed guide on electronic artwork is available on our website: http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions

You are urged to visit this site; some excerpts from the detailed information are given here.

Formats
Regardless of the application used, when your electronic artwork is finalised, please "save as" or convert the images to one of the following formats (Note the resolution requirements for line drawings, halftones, and line/halftone combinations given below.):

EPS: Vector drawings. Embed the font or save the text as "graphics".
TIFF: Colour or greyscale photographs (halftones): always use a minimum of 300 dpi.
TIFF: Bitmapped line drawings: use a minimum of 1000 dpi.
TIFF: Combinations bitmapped line/half-tone (colour or greyscale): a minimum of 500 dpi is required.
DOC, XLS or PPT: If your electronic artwork is created in any of these Microsoft Office applications please supply "as is".


Please do not:•Supply embedded graphics in your wordprocessor (spreadsheet, presentation) document;
•Supply files that are optimised for screen use (like GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG); the resolution is too low;
•Supply files that are too low in resolution;
•Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.


Captions
Ensure that each illustration has a caption. Supply captions separately, not attached to the figure. A caption should comprise a brief title (not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used.

Line drawings
The lettering and symbols, as well as other details, should have proportionate dimensions, so as not to become illegible or unclear after possible reduction; in general, the figures should be designed for a reduction factor of two to three. The degree of reduction will be determined by the Publisher. Illustrations will not be enlarged. Consider the page format of the journal when designing the illustrations.

Do not use any type of shading on computer-generated illustrations.

Photographs (halftones)
Remove non-essential areas of a photograph. Do not mount photographs unless they form part of a composite figure. Where necessary, insert a scale bar in the illustration (not below it), as opposed to giving a magnification factor in the caption.

Colour illustrations
Please make sure that artwork files are in an acceptable format (TIFF, EPS or MS Office files) and with the correct resolution. If, together with your accepted article, you submit usable colour figures then Elsevier will ensure, at no additional charge, that these figures will appear in colour on the Web (e.g., ScienceDirect and other sites) regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Elsevier after receipt of your accepted article. Please indicate your preference for colour in print or on the Web only. For further information on the preparation of electronic artwork, please see http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.

Proofs

One set of page proofs in PDF format will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author (if we do not have an e-mail address then paper proofs will be sent by post). Elsevier now sends PDF proofs which can be annotated; for this you will need to download Adobe Reader version 7 (or higher) available free from http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html. Instructions on how to annotate PDF files will accompany the proofs. The exact system requirements are given at the Adobe site: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/acrrsystemreqs.html#70win. If you do not wish to use the PDF annotations function, you may list the corrections (including replies to the Query Form) and return to Elsevier in an e-mail. Please list your corrections quoting line number. If, for any reason, this is not possible, then mark the corrections and any other comments (including replies to the Query Form) on a printout of your proof and return by fax, or scan the pages and e-mail, or by post.

Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text, tables and figures. Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the Editor. We will do everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately. Therefore, it is important to ensure that all of your corrections are sent back to us in one communication: please check carefully before replying, as inclusion of any subsequent corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility. Note that

Elsevier may proceed with the publication of your article if no response is received.

Electronic Offprints

The corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article via e-mail. The PDF file is a watermarked version of the published article and includes a cover sheet with the journal cover image and a disclaimer outlining the terms and conditions of use.