Breast Disease

An International Journal

CiteScore
2023
1.3

Volume

43, 1 issues

Latest issue

43:1 online 16 February 2024

Next issue

44:1 scheduled for January 2025

Back volumes

From volume 10, 1998

ISSN online

1558-1551
Open Access
Online Only

Aims & Scope

Breast Disease is a peer-reviewed journal publishing papers on topics such as basic cellular and molecular biology, epidemiology, genetics, clinical research, imaging, and social and legal issues. The journal publishes research articles and reviews.

Breast Disease publishes review issues devoted to an in-depth analysis of the scientific and public implications of recent research on a specific problem in breast cancer. Thus, the reviews will not only discuss recent discoveries but will also reflect on their impact in breast cancer research or clinical management.

The ongoing work in the field of breast cancer inevitably will hasten discoveries that will have impact on patient outcome. The breadth of this research that spans basic science, clinical medicine, epidemiology, and public policy poses difficulties for investigators. Not only is it necessary to be facile in comprehending ideas from many disciplines, but also important to understand the public implications of these discoveries.

The editorial team believes that Breast Disease will be a timely and important addition to the information needs of scientists, clinicians, and policy makers.

Editorial Board

Editorial Office

Email: breastdisease@iospress.com

Founding Editor

Edison T. Liu, MD
President and CEO of The Jackson Laboratory
Bar Harbor, ME, USA

Editorial Board

William G. Cance, MD
Professor and Chairman, Department of Surgery, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
USA

Charles V. Clevenger
Professor and Chair, Department of Pathology, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA
USA

Stan Lipkowitz, MD, PhD
Women’s Malignancies Branch, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD
USA

Diana M. Lopez, PhD
University of Miami School of Medicine, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Miami, FL
USA

Kathy D. Miller, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Indiana Cancer Pavilion, Indianapolis, IN
USA

Etta Pisano, MD
Associate Professor of Radiology, Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC
USA

Barbara Rimer, DrPH, MPH
Director, Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD
USA

Andrew Seidman, MD
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY
USA

Wei-Zen Wei, PhD
Professor, Department of Oncology, Karmanos Cancer Institute, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI
USA

Yosef Yarden, PhD
Professor, Department of Biological Regulation, Director, Dwek Institute for Cancer Therapy Research, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot
Israel

Doug Yee, MD
Professor, Masonic Cancer Center, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
USA

Author Guidelines

SUBMISSION OF MANUSCRIPT

By submitting my article to this journal, I agree to the Author Copyright Agreement, the IOS Press Ethics Policy, and the IOS Press Privacy Policy.

Authors are requested to submit their manuscript electronically to the journal's submission system.

Note that the manuscript should be uploaded as one file with tables and figures included. This file can be a Microsoft Word document or an Adobe PDF.

All articles will be peer-reviewed.

Required files
After the article has been accepted, the authors should submit the final version as source files, including a word processor file of the text, such as Word or LateX (If using LaTeX, please use the standard article.sty as a style file and also send a PDF version of the LaTeX file).

Open access fee
From 2024 onwards Breast Disease has moved from its previous hybrid publication model to a true gold open access journal. Authors of accepted papers will be required to pay an open access fee of US$500 / €500 (ex. VAT if applicable) to publish under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license on acceptance for publication. Publishing under the CC BY 4.0 license is available at US$2150/ €2150 (ex. VAT if applicable).

When an article is accepted for publication in the journal, the corresponding author will be informed regarding the open access and payment options. After payment of the open access fee, the paper will be taken into production by the IOS Press production office. Payment of the fee must be received before an article is published in the journal.

IOS Press has agreements with institutions to support open access publishing. To find out if you are eligible for a discount or waiver of the open access fee, please click here.

Corresponding authors from countries with low-income economies may be eligible for a waiver of the open access fee. The eligible countries are defined by the Research4Life project. Fees are waived on a case-by-case basis. The corresponding author should notify the journal of their inability to pay the publication fee upon submission of the article, otherwise the request will not be evaluated.

PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPTS

Organization of the paper and style of presentation
Manuscripts must be written in English. Authors whose native language is not English are advised to consult a professional English language editing service or a native English speaker prior to submission.

Manuscripts should be prepared with wide margins and double spacing throughout, including the abstract, footnotes and references. Every page of the manuscript, including the title page, references, tables, etc., should be numbered. However, in the text no reference should be made to page numbers; if necessary, one may refer to sections. Try to avoid the excessive use of italics and bold face.
Manuscripts should be organized in the following order:

  • Title page
  • Body of text (divided by subheadings)
  • Acknowledgements
  • Author contributions
  • Conflict of Interest
  • References
  • Tables
  • Figure captions
  • Figures

Headings and subheadings should be numbered and typed on a separate line, without indentation.

SI units should be used, i.e., the units based on the metre, kilogramme, second, etc.

Title page
The title page should provide the following information:

  • Title (should be clear, descriptive and not too long)
  • Name(s) of author(s) without abbreviation; please indicate who is the corresponding author. Note that no authors will be added or removed post submission, unless the journal editor and all co-authors are informed and are in agreement to this change.
  • Full affiliation(s)
  • Present address of author(s), if different from affiliation
  • Complete address of the corresponding author, including tel. no., email address, and ORCID ID
  • Abstract
  • Keywords.

Abstract
The abstract should be clear, descriptive, self-explanatory and not longer than 200 words, it should also be suitable for publication in abstracting services.
The abstract for research papers should follow the “structured abstract” format. Section labels should be in bold uppercase letters followed by a colon, and each section will begin on a new line.
BACKGROUND:
OBJECTIVE:
METHODS:
RESULTS:
CONCLUSIONS:

Materials and Methods
Experimental subjects
When human subjects are used, manuscripts must be accompanied by a statement that the experiments were undertaken with the understanding and written consent of each subject, and that the study conforms with The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki), printed in the British Medical Journal (18 July 1964).

When experimental animals are used, the Materials and methods section must briefly but explicitly state measures which were taken to minimize pain or discomfort, e.g. type and dose of anaesthetic used. Experiments should be carried out in accordance with the European Communities Council Directive of 24 November 1986 (86/609/EEC) or with the Guidelines laid down by the NIH in the US, available from the Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, RKLI, Suite 360, MSC 7982, 6705 Rockledge Drive, Bethesda, MD 20892-7982, or online (olaw.nih.gov) regarding the care and use of animals for experimental procedures.

All studies using human or animal subjects should include an explicit statement in the Materials and Methods section identifying the review and approval committee for each study. Editors reserve the right to reject papers if there is doubt whether appropriate procedures have been used.

Acknowledgments
This section should contain all acknowledgments, including any funding source to the research.

Author contributions
For every author, his or her contribution to the manuscript needs to be provided using the following categories:

Conception:
Interpretation or analysis of data:
Preparation of the manuscript:
Revision for important intellectual content:
Supervision:

Please read the IOS Press authorship policy for further information.

Conflict of Interest

Statement of any potential conflicts should be clearly identified at the end of the paper. If there is no conflict of interest to declare, you must still include this section and insert the following statement: "The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest."

If an author is also on the Editorial Board of this journal, the following statement should be included in this section: “<AUTHOR> is an Editorial Board Member of this journal, but was not involved in the peer-review process nor had access to any information regarding its peer-review.’’

Datasets/Data Availability Statement (Required for Research Reports, Short Communications, and Systematic Reviews/Meta-Analyses)

All datasets and data articles cited in your manuscript should be included in the reference list of your article (not in a separate box or in the article text). Data references should include: author name(s), dataset title, data repository, version (where available), year, and identifier (DOI/URL/etc.).
Authors should include a Data Availability statement at the end of the manuscript (before the References) to describe the availability or the absence of shared data. Authors are required to deposit sequence or proteomic data into a public repository (eg. GEO, Chorus) and include a link to the repository and data, and encouraged to publicly archive their research data including, but not limited to: software, algorithms, protocols, methods, and/or materials. Exceptions are made if sharing data compromises ethical standards or legal requirements.
Examples for your paper’s “Data Availability" statement:

  1. The data supporting the findings of this study are openly available in [repository name] at [DOI and/or URL]. These data were derived from the following resources available in the public domain: [list resources and URLs].
  2. The data supporting the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions.
  3. The data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article and/or its supplementary material.
  4. Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during this study.

REFERENCES

Place citations as numbers in square brackets in the text. All publications cited in the text should be presented in an alphabetical list of references at the end of the manuscript in the following style:

[1] B. Newman and E.T. Liu, Perspective on BRCA1, Breast Disease 10 (1998), 3-10.
[2] D.F. Pilkey, Happy conservation laws, in: Neural Stresses, J. Frost, ed., Controlled Press, Georgia, 1995, pp. 332-391.
[3] E. Wilson, Active vibration analysis of thin-walled beams, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Virginia, 1991.

Footnotes
Footnotes should only be used if absolutely essential. In most cases it is possible to incorporate the information in the text.

If used, they should be numbered in the text, indicated by superscript numbers and kept as short as possible.

Tables
Number as Table 1, Table 2 etc., and refer to all of them in the text.
Each table should be provided on a separate page of the manuscript. Tables should not be included in the text.
Each table should have a brief and self-explanatory title.
Column headings should be brief, but sufficiently explanatory. Standard abbreviations of units of measurement should be added between parentheses.
Vertical lines should not be used to separate columns. Leave some extra space between the columns instead.
Any explanations essential to the understanding of the table should be given in footnotes at the bottom of the table.

Figures
Number figures as Fig. 1, Fig. 2, etc. and refer to all of them in the text.

Each figure should be provided on a separate sheet. Figures should not be included in the text.

For the file formats of the figures please take the following into account:
- Line art should be have a minimum resolution of 600 dpi, save as EPS or TIFF
- Grayscales (incl. photos) should have a minimum resolution of 300 dpi (no lettering), or 500 dpi (when there is lettering); save as tiff
- Do not save figures as JPEG, this format may lose information in the process
- Do not use figures taken from the Internet

Figures should be designed with the format of the page of the journal in mind. They should be of such a size as to allow a reduction of 50%.

On maps and other figures where a scale is needed, use bar scales rather than numerical ones, i.e., do not use scales of the type 1:10,000. This avoids problems if the figures need to be reduced.

Each figure should have a self-explanatory caption. The captions to all figures should be typed on a separate sheet of the manuscript.

Photographs are only acceptable if they have good contrast and intensity.

COPYRIGHT

Copyright of your article
Authors submitting a manuscript do so on the understanding that they have read and agreed to the terms of the IOS Press Author Copyright Agreement.

Article sharing
Authors of journal articles are permitted to self-archive and share their work through institutional repositories, personal websites, and preprint servers. Authors have the right to use excerpts of their article in other works written by the authors themselves, provided that the original work is properly cited. The consent for sharing an article, in whole or in part, depends on the version of the article that is shared, where it is shared, and the copyright license under which the article is published. Please refer to the IOS Press Article Sharing Policy for further information.

Quoting from other publications
Authors, when quoting from someone else's work or when considering reproducing figures or tables from a book or journal article, should make sure that they are not infringing a copyright. Although in general authors may quote from other published works, permission should be obtained from the holder of the copyright if there will be substantial extracts or reproduction of tables, plates, or other figures. If the copyright holder is not the author of the quoted or reproduced material, it is recommended that the permission of the author should also be sought. Material in unpublished letters and manuscripts is also protected and must not be published unless permission has been obtained. Submission of a paper will be interpreted as a statement that the author has obtained all the necessary permission. A suitable acknowledgement of any borrowed material must always be made.

PROOFS

The corresponding author will receive a link to the PDF proof and is asked to check this proof carefully (the publisher will execute a cursory check only). Please be sure to return your corrections as quickly as possible to ensure a timely publication date. Corrections other than typesetter's errors should be avoided, so please make sure when you submit your final revised paper to the editorial office that it is proofread and final. Costs arising from excessive corrections will be charged to the authors. Once the author’s corrections or approval to the proof are received, the article is published in final form into the journal’s running volume. After final publication corrections will no longer be able to be made. If a significant error is discovered after publication, the only option is to publish a separate Erratum, the production of which must first be evaluated by the publisher (editorial@iospress.com).

PURCHASES

How to order reprints, a PDF file, journals, or IOS Press books
The corresponding author of a contribution to the journal will receive a complimentary PDF Author’s Copy of the article, unless otherwise stated. This PDF copy is watermarked and for personal use only. A free PDF copy will not be provided for conference proceedings and abstract issues. An order form for a PDF file without watermark, reprints or additional journal copies will be provided along with the PDF proof.

If you wish to order reprints of an earlier published article, please contact the publisher for a quotation. IOS Press, Fax: +31 20 687 0019. Email: editorial@iospress.nl.

An author is entitled to 25 % discount on IOS Press books. See Author's discount (25%) on all IOS Press book publications.

KUDOS

Authors of published articles (non-prepress, final articles) will be contacted by Kudos. Kudos is a service that helps researchers maximize the impact and visibility of their research. It allows authors to enrich their articles with lay metadata, add links to related materials and promote their articles through the Kudos system to a wider public. Authors will receive no more than three emails: one invitation and a maximum of two reminders to register for the service and link the published article to their profile. Using and registering for Kudos remains entirely optional. For more information, please have a look at our authors section.

HOW TO PROMOTE YOUR WORK

Would you like some pointers on how to help your research achieve a wider reach and greater impact? Please consult our Promotional Toolkit for Authors for tips.

Please visit the IOS Press Authors page for further information.

Abstracted/Indexed in

Academic Search
Cabell's Guide or Directory
Cancer Prevention and Control Database
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Elsevier BIOBASE
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Epilepsy Education and Prevention Database
Health Education and Promotion Database
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MEDLINE
Prenatal Smoking Cessation Database
PubMed
SciVerse Scopus
Ulrich's Periodicals Directory

Open Access

Gold open access pricing
From 2024 onwards Breast Disease has moved from its previous hybrid publication model to a true gold open access journal. Authors of accepted papers will be required to pay an open access fee of US$500 / €500 (ex. VAT if applicable) to publish under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license on acceptance for publication. Publishing under the CC BY 4.0 license is available at US$2150/ €2150 (ex. VAT if applicable). After an article is accepted for publication, the corresponding author will be informed regarding the open access options during the production stages. It could be that the open access fee of an article is waived completely due an institutional agreement IOS Press has with the corresponding authors' institution. Please check the institutional agreements page for details.

Waivers are available for corresponding authors from eligible countries as identified by Research4Life project. Other authors who envisage difficulties paying the article processing charge may appeal to the Editorial Office to discuss waiving the charge prior to submitting their article. Appeals submitted after review has been completed are rejected.

Articles published behind a paywall in the pre-2024 volumes are available only to institutions and individuals with access rights. However, the journal offers all authors the option to purchase open access publication for their article as part of the IOS Press Open Library, even after final publication. This means that the current version will be made freely available to anyone worldwide, indefinitely, under a Creative Commons license. This is also referred to as “gold” open access. Authors who submitted their article before 2024 and who now choose gold open access publication will be subject to an article publication charge of US$500 / €500 for publication under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license or US$2150/ €2150 for publication under the CC BY 4.0 license. Pricing is exclusive of possible taxes. Authors can purchase open access at any time through the order form link in their decision letter.

Green open access
Authors who did not make use of the gold open access option pre-2024 may still make their article freely available using self-archiving, also referred to as green open access. Authors may make their final accepted manuscript available for free download from their personal or institutional website or institutional archive. This model is free for the author.

Peer Review

Breast Disease Peer Review Policy

Breast Disease is a peer-reviewed journal. All articles submitted to the journal undergo a single blind peer review process. This means that the identity of the authors is known with the reviewers but the identity of the reviewers is not communicated to the authors. Please visit our reviewer guidelines for further information about how to conduct a review.

All submitted manuscripts are automatically screened for plagiarism through iThenticate and, if found suitable for further consideration, to rigorous peer-review by independent, anonymous expert referees. Reasons to reject a paper in the pre-screening process could for example be because the work does not fall within the aims and scope, the writing is of poor quality, the instructions to authors were not followed or the presented work is not novel. Desk rejections are communicated within a few days after submission.

Reviewers are asked to judge a paper on at least:

  • Originality, novelty and significance of results
  • Technical quality of work
  • Comprehensibility and presentation of the paper
  • Overall impression

Based on the received reviews, a decision is made:

  • Accept
  • Minor revisions required
  • Major revisions required
  • Revise and resubmit
  • Reject

They mean the following:

  1. Accept: The manuscript is suitable for publication and only requires minor polishing; thus, no further reviews are requested.
  2. Minor revisions required: The authors are required to make moderate changes to their manuscript. The manuscript becomes acceptable for publication if the changes proposed by the reviewers and editors are successfully addressed. The revised manuscript will be examined by the Editors-in-Chief and possibly sent back to all (or a selection of) reviewers for a second round of reviews. Authors are requested to provide a letter to the reviewers detailing the improvements made for the resubmission.
  3. Major revisions required: The manuscript cannot be accepted for publication in its current form. However, a major revision which addresses all issues raised by the reviewers may be acceptable for publication. The revised manuscript will undergo a full second round of review. Authors are requested to provide a letter to the reviewers detailing the improvements made for the resubmission. The article may still be rejected in the revision round.
  4. Revise and resubmit: In its current form, the manuscript is not suitable for publication. A resubmission would require substantial revisions and is only encouraged in special cases. The resubmitted manuscript will be considered as a new submission.
  5. Reject: The manuscript is rejected as it is deemed to be out of scope, not relevant, or not meeting the journal’s quality standards in terms of significance, novelty, and/or presentation.

Authors are notified of the decision by the editorial office.

In-house submissions are subjected to the peer review process described above. Co-authors who are also members of the Editorial Board are not involved in any way with the peer review process of articles of their (co-)authorship.

Online-Only Journal – We are pleased to announce that Breast Disease has now transitioned to an online-only journal, with continuous publication with one issue per volume starting from 2022. This means that articles no longer go into pre-press and content is published in the issue as soon as it is finalized. You can now view the first article published in the new format in Volume 41

Do you Wish to Receive Updates? – If you would like to receive news updates about Breast Disease, then please sign up at: tiny.cc/BDsignup. You can view the latest mailing here

Latest Articles

Discover the latest articles published in the journal:

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on breast cancer pathological stage at diagnosis in Tunisian patients
Mouna Zghal, Meriam Triki, Houda Ben Ayed, Saadia Makni, Maroua Bouhamed, Semi Fendri, Slim Charfi, Tahya Boudawara, Manel Mellouli

Clinicopathological analysis of 38 male patients diagnosed with breast cancer
Serdar Balci, Seniha Irem Sahin, Gulnur Guler, Kadri Altundag

Sustainable Development Goals

The content of this journal relates to SDG:

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Visit the SDG page for more information.

Supporting Diversity and Inclusion

This journal supports IOS Press' actions relating to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and commits to the Diversity and Inclusion Statement.

More information will be available in due course. Check the SDGs page for updates.  

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