AUTHOR INSTRUCTIONS

JISS welcomes submissions across a broad range of topics including surgical techniques, biomedical innovations, clinical and basic spine science, artificial intelligence contribution to spine as well as education, health policy, and global spine care practices. Visual content such as clinical images and surgical videos are also encouraged.

Authors are required to submit their manuscripts electronically through the online submission system, with the corresponding author responsible for the submission and revision.

Corresponding author must sign the Copyright Release, Author Agreement, and Disclosure of Conflict of Interest form (COI Form), certifying that the manuscript is original, unpublished, and not under review elsewhere; any research funding from private entities must be disclosed on the same form and should be submitted with the manuscript. Only individuals directly involved in the research should be listed as authors, and authorship guidelines can be referred to via Harvard University’s 1999 guidelines.

The editorial board retains sole authority over publication decisions. Non-native English speakers are advised to seek professional language editing, and the editorial office may request further English revisions; for accepted papers, complimentary copy editing and proofreading may be provided.

Upon publication, all materials become the permanent property of the International Spine Society, and commercial use requires formal permission. Authors can and are encouraged to share their final version of the article.

 

Article Types

• Original Article
• Case Report
• Case Series
• Review Article
• Systematic Review
• Commentary
• Letter to Editor
• Technical Note
• Surgical Technique
• Editorial

 

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

All original research, experimental and clinical studies pertaining to the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of spine pathologies are welcome to be submitted to the Journal of International Spine Society.

• Title page
• Abstract

The abstract should not exceed 350 words. Please minimize the use of abbreviations and do not cite references in the abstract. The abstract must include the following separate sections:

Background: the context and purpose of the study

Results: the main findings

Conclusions: a brief summary and potential implications

Keywords: Three to six keywords representing the main content of the article.

• Main Article

Background

The Background section should explain the background to the study, its aims, a summary of the existing literature and why this study was necessary.

Methods

• The aim, design and setting of the study
• The characteristics of participants or description of materials
• A clear description of all processes, interventions and comparisons. Generic names should generally be used.
• When proprietary brands are used in research, include the brand names in parentheses the type of statistical analysis used, including a power calculation if appropriate

Results

This should include the findings of the study including, if appropriate, results of statistical analysis that must be included either in the text or as tables and figures.

Discussion

Discussion should discuss the implications of the findings in context of existing research and highlight limitations of the study. For study protocols and methodology manuscripts this section should include a discussion of any practical or operational issues involved in performing the study and any issues not covered in other sections.

Conclusion

This should state clearly the main conclusions and provide an explanation of the importance and relevance of the study to the field.

List of abbreviations

If abbreviations are used in the text they should be defined in the text at first use, and a list of abbreviations should be provided.

 

CASE REPORT

We encourage the publication of original and interesting case reports that contribute significantly to medical knowledge. Manuscripts must meet one of the following criteria: 

• Unreported or unusual side effects or adverse interactions involving treatment, surgery or medication. 
• Unexpected or unusual presentations of a disease. 
• New associations or variations in disease processes. 
• Presentations, diagnoses and/or management of new and emerging diseases. 
• An unexpected association between diseases or symptoms. 
• An unexpected event in the course of observing or treating a patient. 
• Findings that shed new light on the possible pathogenesis of a disease or an adverse effect. 
• Case reports should include an up-to-date review of all previous cases in the field. 

Authors should seek written and signed consent to publish the information from the patients or their guardians prior to submission. Authors will be asked to confirm informed consent was received as part of the submission process. The submitted manuscript must include a statement to this effect in the 'Consent' section, as follows: "Written informed consent was obtained from the patient for publication of this case report and accompanying images". The editorial office may request copies of the informed consent documentation upon submission of the manuscript. 

• Title page
• Abstract

The abstract should not exceed 300 words. Please minimize the use of abbreviations and do not cite references in the abstract. The abstract must include the following separate sections:

Background: why the case should be reported and its novelty

Case presentation: a brief description of the patient’s clinical and demographic details, the diagnosis, any interventions and the outcomes

Conclusion: a brief summary of the clinical impact or potential implications of the case report

Keywords: Three to five keywords representing the main content of the article.

• Main Article

Background

The Background section should explain the background to the case report or study, its aims, a summary of the existing literature.

Case presentation

This section should include a description of the patient’s relevant demographic details, medical history, symptoms and signs, treatment or intervention, outcomes and any other significant details.

Discussion

Discuss the findings of this case report and correlate it with previous findings. Provide possible explanations supported by references.

Conclusion

This should state clearly the main conclusions and include an explanation of their relevance or importance to the field.

*All Case reports must be accompanied by CARE Checklist. 

 

SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

Reviews are a feature of the journal that may include, but are not limited to, the following types of articles:

- systematic and substantial syntheses of specific research areas,

- evaluations of progress in specified areas,

- critical assessments with respect to issues

- within the scope of Journal of International Spine Society.

• • • Title page
    • Abstract

The abstract should not exceed 350 words and should be structured with a background, main body of the abstract and short conclusion. Please minimize the use of abbreviations and do not cite references in the abstract. Three to five keywords representing the main content of the article.

• Main Article

Background

The Background section should explain the background to the article, its aims, a summary of a search of the existing literature and the issue under discussion.

Methods

1. Protocol and Registration

• • • Mention whether a protocol was registered (e.g., with PROSPERO).
    • Provide the registration number and a link if available.
    • Example: "This review followed a registered protocol (PROSPERO CRD42023456789)."

2. Eligibility Criteria (Inclusion/Exclusion)

• PICO (Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome) or similar framework.
• Study designs included (e.g., RCTs, observational studies).
• Language, publication date, or geographic restrictions (if any).

3. Information Sources

• Databases searched (e.g., PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Scopus, etc.).
• Time frame of the search (e.g., “from inception to March 2025”).
• Any manual or grey literature searches (e.g., conference proceedings, thesis databases).

4. Search Strategy

• Provide the full search strategy for at least one database in an appendix.
• Include keywords and Boolean operators used.

"Search terms included: 'spinal cord injury', 'surgery', 'complications', combined using Boolean operators (AND, OR)."

5. Study Selection Process

• How studies were screened (e.g., title/abstract first, then full text).
• Number of reviewers involved (e.g., “Two independent reviewers”).
• How disagreements were resolved (e.g., third reviewer or consensus).

6. Data Collection Process

• Tools/software used for data extraction (e.g., Excel, Covidence).
• Whether a standardized form was used.
• Blinded extraction (if applicable).

7. Data Items

• What data was extracted: study characteristics, population details, outcomes, results, etc.

8. Risk of Bias Assessment

• Tool used for quality assessment (e.g., Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool, ROBINS-I, Newcastle-Ottawa Scale).
• How assessments were performed (independently, in duplicate, etc.).

9. Data Synthesis

• Whether a qualitative synthesis, meta-analysis, or both were performed.
• Statistical methods used (e.g., random-effects model, heterogeneity via I²).
• Software used (e.g., RevMan, Stata, R).
• How missing data were handled.

10. Subgroup or Sensitivity Analyses (if any)

• Planned subgroup analyses (e.g., by age group, region, intervention type).
• Sensitivity analyses for robustness.

11. Assessment of Publication Bias

• Funnel plots, Egger’s test, etc. (if meta-analysis is done).

12. PRISMA Flow Diagram

• Include an accurate PRISMA flow diagram of studies included and excluded with reasons.

Main text

This should contain the body of the article, and may also be broken into subsections with short, informative headings.

Conclusion

This should state clearly the main conclusions and include an explanation of their relevance or importance to the field.

 

COMMENTARY

Commentaries are short, narrowly focused articles of contemporary interest and usually take one of the following forms:

Discussion of an article or study that was recently published or that is soon to be published, and that is interesting enough to warrant further comment or explanation. This type of commentary discusses specific issues within a subject area rather than the whole field, explains the implications of the article and puts it in context. Opinions are welcome as long as they are factually based.

Commentary that is more editorial in nature and covers an aspect of an issue that is relevant to the journal's scope, for example discussion of the impact of new technology on research and treatment.

Brief Reports: These are not simply descriptions of something but also explore the potential impacts for evolution education and outreach, such as: Museum exhibits, Online resources, Software, Reports of major conferences/society activity/working groups, Case reports from educational projects that are not ready for a full article.

Commentaries should not exceed 9000 words.

Title page

Abstract

The abstract should not exceed 300 words and should be structured with a background, main body of the abstract and short conclusion. Please minimize the use of abbreviations and do not cite references in the abstract.

Keywords

Three to five keywords representing the main content of the article.

Background

The Background section should explain the background to the article, its aims, a summary of a search of the existing literature and the issue under discussion.

Main text

This should contain the body of the article, and may also be broken into subsections with short, informative headings.

Conclusion

This should state clearly the main conclusions and include an explanation of their relevance or importance to the field.

 

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

A Letter to the Editor generally takes one of the following forms:

• A substantial re-analysis of a previously published article in Journal of International Spine Society or in another journal.
• An article that may not cover 'standard research' but that is of general interest to the broad readership of Journal of International Spine Society.
• A brief report of cases or research findings adequate for the journal's scope and of particular interest to the community.
• The Letter to the Editor for Journal of International Spine Society should start with "To the Editor", and contain the body of the article of not longer than 500 words which may be broken into subsections with short, informative headings. No Abstract is necessary.
• Letters to the Editor may be edited for clarity or length and may be subject to peer review at the editors' discretion. Short reports of research work will be peer reviewed.

 

TECHNICAL NOTE / SURGICAL TECHNIQUE

Technical notes should present a software tool or an experimental or computational method, test or procedure, surgical intervention or hardware design. The tool or method described may be new or may be an update or adaptation of an existing one. The tool or method needs to have been tested, and while not necessarily outperforming existing approaches should show innovation in the approach or implementation. Authors must clearly acknowledge work upon which they are building, both published and unpublished.

 

GENERAL RULES

Title page

Article Title

Titles should be concise, clear, and informative. Avoid abbreviations and formulae unless they are standard and widely recognized (e.g., DNA). When appropriate, include the study design in the title for clinical or research articles. Example formats include:

• “A versus B in the treatment of C: a randomized controlled trial”
• “X is a risk factor for Y: a case-control study”
• “What is the impact of factor X on outcome Y: a systematic review”
• “Case report: Unusual presentation of Z”
  For non-clinical or descriptive manuscripts, clearly state what the article reports.

Author Names and Affiliations
Provide the full names of all authors, listed in the correct order as they appear in the submission system. For each author, include the complete institutional affiliation (department, institution, city, country). Use superscript numbers to link authors to their affiliations. ORCID is encouraged but not mandatory.

Collaboration Groups
If the manuscript is authored by a collaboration group, the group name should be listed as an author. If you wish for individual members of the group to be indexed in PubMed, include their names in the “Acknowledgements” section.

Corresponding Author
Clearly identify the corresponding author who will be responsible for all communication during the peer review and publication process, and for responding to post-publication inquiries. Ensure the corresponding author's email address and contact information are accurate and up to date.

Present or Permanent Addresses
If an author has changed affiliation after the study was conducted, indicate the current (or permanent) address using a superscript Arabic numeral and include it as a footnote. The primary affiliation listed should reflect where the work was originally performed.

Use of Large Language Models (LLMs) (AI)
Authors must not list Large Language Models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, as authors, as they do not meet authorship criteria and cannot be held accountable for the work. If an LLM was used during manuscript preparation (e.g., for language editing or coding assistance), its use must be clearly documented in the Methods section or another appropriate part of the manuscript.

List of abbreviations

If abbreviations are used in the text they should be defined in the text at first use, and a list of abbreviations should be provided.

Declarations

All manuscripts must contain the following sections under the heading 'Declarations':

• Ethics approval and consent to participate
• Consent for publication
• Availability of data and material
• Competing interests
• Funding
• Authors' contributions
• Acknowledgements
• Authors' information (optional)
• Use of Large Language Models (LLMs AI)

If any of the sections are not relevant to your manuscript, please include the heading and write 'Not applicable' for that section.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Manuscripts reporting studies involving human participants, human data or human tissue must:

include a statement on ethics approval and consent (even where the need for approval was waived)

include the name of the ethics committee that approved the study and the committee’s reference number if appropriate

Studies involving animals must include a statement on ethics approval.

If your manuscript does not report on or involve the use of any animal or human data or tissue, please state “Not applicable” in this section.

Consent for publication

If your manuscript contains any individual person’s data in any form (including individual details, images or videos), consent to publish must be obtained from that person, or in the case of children, their parent or legal guardian. All presentations of case reports must have consent to publish.

You can use your institutional consent form if you prefer. You should not send the form to us on submission, but we may request to see a copy at any stage (including after publication).

If your manuscript does not contain data from any individual person, please state “Not applicable” in this section.

Availability of data and materials

All manuscripts must include an ‘Availability of data and materials’ statement. Data availability statements should include information on where data supporting the results reported in the article can be found including, where applicable, hyperlinks to publicly archived datasets analyzed or generated during the study. By data we mean the minimal dataset that would be necessary to interpret, replicate and build upon the findings reported in the article. We recognize it is not always possible to share research data publicly, for instance when individual privacy could be compromised, and in such instances data availability should still be stated in the manuscript along with any conditions for access.

Data availability statements can take one of the following forms (or a combination of more than one if required for multiple datasets):

The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available in the [NAME] repository, [PERSISTENT WEB LINK TO DATASETS]

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article [and its supplementary information files].

The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due [REASON WHY DATA ARE NOT PUBLIC] but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.

The data that support the findings of this study are available from [third party name] but restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license for the current study, and so are not publicly available. Data are however available from the authors upon reasonable request and with permission of [third party name].

Not applicable. If your manuscript does not contain any data, please state 'Not applicable' in this section.

More examples of template data availability statements, which include examples of openly available and restricted access datasets, are available here.

Competing interests

All financial and non-financial competing interests must be declared in this section.

If you are unsure whether you or any of your co-authors have a competing interest please contact the editorial office.

Please use the authors’ initials to refer to each authors' competing interests in this section.

If you do not have any competing interests, please state "The authors declare that they have no competing interests" in this section.

Funding

All sources of funding for the research reported should be declared. The role of the funding body in the design of the study and collection, analysis, and interpretation of data and in writing the manuscript should be declared.

Authors' contributions

The individual contributions of authors to the manuscript should be specified in this section. Guidance and criteria for authorship can be found in our editorial policies.

Please use initials to refer to each author's contribution in this section, for example: "FC analyzed and interpreted the patient data regarding the hematological disease and the transplant. RH performed the histological examination of the kidney, and was a major contributor in writing the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript."

Acknowledgements

Please acknowledge anyone who contributed towards the article who does not meet the criteria for authorship including anyone who provided professional writing services or materials.

Authors should obtain permission to acknowledge from all those mentioned in the Acknowledgements section.

See our editorial policies for a full explanation of acknowledgements and authorship criteria.

If you do not have anyone to acknowledge, please write "Not applicable" in this section.

Group authorship (for manuscripts involving a collaboration group): if you would like the names of the individual members of a collaboration Group to be searchable through their individual PubMed records, please ensure that the title of the collaboration Group is included on the title page and in the submission system and also include collaborating author names as the last paragraph of the “Acknowledgements” section. Please add authors in the format First Name, Middle initial(s) (optional), Last Name. You can add institution or country information for each author if you wish, but this should be consistent across all authors.

Please note that individual names may not be present in the PubMed record at the time a published article is initially included in PubMed as it takes PubMed additional time to code this information.

Authors' information

This section is optional.

You may choose to use this section to include any relevant information about the author(s) that may aid the reader's interpretation of the article, and understand the standpoint of the author(s). This may include details about the authors' qualifications, current positions they hold at institutions or societies, or any other relevant background information. Please refer to authors using their initials. Note this section should not be used to describe any competing interests.

Use of Large Language Models (LLMs AI)

Authors must disclose any use of AI tools (e.g., large language models, chatbots, image generators) during manuscript preparation at the time of submission. The cover letter and manuscript should state which tools were used and how they contributed. This ensures transparency, builds trust, and supports adherence to tool usage policies.

"We confirm that this manuscript is our original work and has not been submitted or published elsewhere. Any external sources have been properly acknowledged. We used [name of AI tool] to support writing by enhancing language, clarity, and flow. The final content was reviewed and edited by the authors, who take full responsibility for its accuracy and integrity."

Footnotes

Footnotes should be designated within the text using a superscript number. It is not allowed to use footnotes for references/citations.

REFERENCES

Please cite references in text in numerical order with a superscript number, before comma and after period.

Examples of the Vancouver reference style are shown below. 

Web links and URLs: All web links and URLs, including links to the authors' own websites, should be given a reference number and included in the reference list rather than within the text of the manuscript. They should be provided in full, including both the title of the site and the URL, as well as the date the site was accessed, in the following format: The Mouse Tumor Biology Database. http://tumor.informatics.jax.org/mtbwi/index.do. Accessed 20 May 2013. If an author or group of authors can clearly be associated with a web link, such as for weblogs, then they should be included in the reference.

Example reference style:

Article within a journal

Smith JJ. The world of science. Am J Sci. 1999;36:234-5.

Article within a journal (no page numbers)

Rohrmann S, Overvad K, Bueno-de-Mesquita HB, Jakobsen MU, Egeberg R, Tjønneland A, et al. Meat consumption and mortality - results from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition. BMC Medicine. 2013;11:63.

Article within a journal by DOI

Slifka MK, Whitton JL. Clinical implications of dysregulated cytokine production. Dig J Mol Med. 2000; doi:10.1007/s801090000086.

Article within a journal supplement

Frumin AM, Nussbaum J, Esposito M. Functional asplenia: demonstration of splenic activity by bone marrow scan. Blood 1979;59 Suppl 1:26-32.

Book chapter, or an article within a book

Wyllie AH, Kerr JFR, Currie AR. Cell death: the significance of apoptosis. In: Bourne GH, Danielli JF, Jeon KW, editors. International review of cytology. London: Academic; 1980. p. 251-306.

OnlineFirst chapter in a series (without a volume designation but with a DOI)

Saito Y, Hyuga H. Rate equation approaches to amplification of enantiomeric excess and chiral symmetry breaking. Top Curr Chem. 2007. doi:10.1007/128_2006_108.

Complete book, authored

Blenkinsopp A, Paxton P. Symptoms in the pharmacy: a guide to the management of common illness. 3rd ed. Oxford: Blackwell Science; 1998.

Online document

Doe J. Title of subordinate document. In: The dictionary of substances and their effects. Royal Society of Chemistry. 1999. http://www.rsc.org/dose/title of subordinate document. Accessed 15 Jan 1999.

Online database

Healthwise Knowledgebase. US Pharmacopeia, Rockville. 1998. http://www.healthwise.org. Accessed 21 Sept 1998.

Supplementary material/private homepage

Doe J. Title of supplementary material. 2000. http://www.privatehomepage.com. Accessed 22 Feb 2000.

University site

Doe, J: Title of preprint. http://www.uni-heidelberg.de/mydata.html (1999). Accessed 25 Dec 1999.

FTP site

Doe, J: Trivial HTTP, RFC2169. ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2169.txt (1999). Accessed 12 Nov 1999.

Organization site

ISSN International Centre: The ISSN register. http://www.issn.org (2006). Accessed 20 Feb 2007.

Dataset with persistent identifier

Zheng L-Y, Guo X-S, He B, Sun L-J, Peng Y, Dong S-S, et al. Genome data from sweet and grain sorghum (Sorghum bicolor). GigaScience Database. 2011. http://dx.doi.org/10.5524/100012.

GENERAL FORMATTING INFORMATION

• Manuscripts must be written in concise English.
• Use double line spacing
• Include line and page numbering
• Use SI units: Please ensure that all special characters used are embedded in the text, otherwise they will be lost during conversion to PDF
• Do not use page breaks in your manuscript
• All relevant editable source files must be uploaded during the submission process. Failing to submit these source files will cause unnecessary delays in the production process.

Style and language

For editors and reviewers to accurately assess the work presented in your manuscript you need to ensure the English language is of sufficient quality to be understood.

Please note that the use of a language editing service is not a requirement for publication in Journal of International Spine Society and does not imply or guarantee that the article will be selected for peer review or accepted.

Figures

When preparing figures, please follow the formatting instructions below.

• Figure titles (max 15 words) and legends (max 300 words) should be provided in the main manuscript, not in the graphic file.
• All figure formats are acceptable.
• Tables should NOT be submitted as figures but should be included in the main manuscript file.
• Multi-panel figures (those with parts a, b, c, d etc.) should be submitted as a single composite file that contains all parts of the figure.
• Figures should be numbered in the order they are first mentioned in the text, and uploaded in this order.
• Figures should be uploaded in the correct orientation.
• Figure keys should be place in the legend of the figure.
• Each figure should be closely cropped to minimize the amount of white space surrounding the illustration. Cropping figures improves accuracy when placing the figure in combination with other elements when the accepted manuscript is prepared for publication on our site. For more information on individual figure file formats, see our detailed instructions.
• Individual figure files should not exceed 10 MB. If a suitable format is chosen, this file size is adequate for extremely high quality figures.
• Please note that it is the responsibility of the author(s) to obtain permission from the copyright holder to reproduce figures (or tables) that have previously been published elsewhere. In order for all figures to be open access, authors must have permission from the rights holder if they wish to include images that have been published elsewhere in non open access journals. Permission should be indicated in the figure legend, and the original source included in the reference list.

Tables